“Since the CBSE Class 12 is made irrelevant with regard to higher education, the mark sheet is only a certificate to say a student has successfully completed a course,” State Platform for Common School System – Tamil Nadu (SPCSS-TN) general secretary PB Prince Gajendra Babu said. He said under the present circumstances, CBSE has come out with a formula that may be better than any other criteria for its institutions. 

Stating that CBSE does not have any better option, Tamil Nadu Teachers Association president PK Ilamaran said it should ensure that its schools should not enter into malpractices to boost the results. 

Tamil Nadu Parents Teachers Welfare Association president S Arumainathan said, “This CBSE evaluation will surely affect well performing students in Class 12 as they would have not scored good marks in Class 11 and 10,” he said and pointed out that in Tamil Nadu calculating marks for its State Board Class 12 would be further difficult as annual exams were not conducted in some papers for them in Class 11. 

S Praveen Kumar, a Class 12 student from Pammal, rued that his hard work went in vain and pointed out that he did not get good marks in Class 11 as he started preparing for Class 12 early. “Adding to student’s woes, assessing Class 11 marks cannot be accepted as those annual exams would defer from school to school,” he added. 

M Ishwaria, another Class 12 student from Tambaram, said the government could have attempted to conduct exams online since almost all the CBSE students had access to internet. However, she was satisfied with the CBSE move to conduct physical exams if students were not happy with the marks. “Another issue is, it is unclear when physical exams would be conducted and by the time college admissions might be over,” she added.