Nagpur: For the first time in Maharashtra’s history, entire Std X board exam (SSC) has been cancelled due to the rising cases of Covid-19. School education minister Varsha Gaikwad told TOI the decision has been taken as “health of students is the priority”. For Std XII (HSC), the government has continued with its status as ‘postponed’ but no new dates have been announced.
Gaikwad said, “There was unanimity in taking the decision about SSC cancellation. In the next few days, the state board will study how to allot marks to students. We will inform the public soon about the criteria and evaluation parameters.”
Former chairman of Nagpur divisional board Ravikant Deshpande welcomed the decision. “I was at helm in 2020 when the virus struck. We finished our entire HSC schedule before things got worse and only one SSC paper (Geography) was cancelled. It was indeed a mammoth task to get the papers evaluated and collate marks data and declare results. I am happy the government took a student-friendly decision,” said Deshpande.
Madhu Joseph, principal of Bengali High School, said this decision could have been made sooner. “I am relieved at this decision by the education minister. With the number of cases increasing everyday, it’s a wise decision. Health is wealth and Maharashtra government has taken the right step,” said Joseph.
Mrunalini Dasture, principal of The South Public School, said, “I am extremely happy because students and parents were very worried. The virus strain we have is not sparing children either, so going ahead with the examinations would have spelt disaster.”
Ashnarayan Tiwari, principal of Adarsh Vidya Mandir (Gandhibagh), said, “We were confident government will take this decision, sooner or later. Lot of parents were in touch with us and kept on asking whether or not the exams will be cancelled.”
Shrikrishna Ramteke, principal of Bharat Vidyalaya, said the cancellation prevented mass infections. “Lakhs of students would have appeared for these exams and you can imagine the repercussions of that,” said Ramteke.
On April 12, education minister Gaikwad had announced postponement of both SSC and HSC exams. Gaikwad also mentioned that she will contact other boards and ask them to reconsider their exam schedule since their schools were located in Maharashtra, where the Covid-19 cases are rising steadily.
Two days later CBSE announced cancellation of Std X exams and postponement of XII. Within a few hours of this, Gaikwad announced state board is also looking into cancellation of SSC, which was finally announced on Tuesday.