BHOPAL: Students in the city taking the class 10 and 12 CBSE examinations 2020-21 are stressed. They say that they have not attended a single in-person class in this academic session. They have lost writing speed, since they have been attending online classes for nine months.
The CBSE has made it clear that it will conduct conventional pen-and-paper examination. The body is all set to announce the dates of the examination soon.
Khushi Verma, a student of class 10, told Free Press that she was not feeling confident as she has lost writing practice. “I have been attending classes on phone and answering questions by pressing buttons. I have not used my pen for many months,” she says. Network issues also made grasping things difficult. According to Khushi it is ‘wrong’ to ask students to take written examinations when they were taught online. They should have taken online examination, she says.
Khushi says that according to their teachers their syllabus has been completed but she and most of her classmates do not agree. She says that though the schools have reopened her parents are not allowing her to attend classes.
Riya Jain, who has to take class 12 examinations, says she that all the exams they took online were MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions) and now they would have to sit in the examination hall and answer questions in writing for three hours. She also says that her course has not been completed. “We were called to the school recently for practical classes and our pre-board exams will begin from January 11,” she says.
Many not confident to take classroom exams Yes, the students are stressed. From July to December not a week passed when children didn’t approach me saying they were not confident to take classroom exams. The parents of many have contacted me. However, they should relax. They should realise that the authorities also know that they haven’t attended classes this year. And so, the questions papers will be set keeping this fact in mind and the marking will be done leniently. They should start preparations and keep their morale high. The parents should also boost their confidence level. The students who have started attending schools are feeling much better.-Ruma Bhattacharya, psychiatrist
Pranjal Saxena, who studies in class 10, says that he is hardly prepared for the examination. Pranjal, who has developed eye problems due to attending classes on mobile phone, says that he has not written a single word for the past seven months. “My confidence is low. My writing speed has slowed down,” he says. Pranjal says that physical classes are much more effective than online ones. “When we go to school, we interact with teachers and classmates. This helps us clear our doubts,” he says.
Atharva Pandey of class 10 says that online classes were of little help. “Whatever I have learned is through self-study,” he says. Atharva, who is also taking coaching, says that he has been able to cover just around 50%of the syllabus of Science and Maths. “I haven’t started on Sanskrit,” he says.
According to Gautam Thakur, who is in class 12, his preparations are not even 50 per cent of what they were in class 10. “We had online classes just for an hour every day. How can we learn in such a small duration?” he says.
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