HSC exam to begin: After 2 years of online classes, students fret over offline exam

As most of their academics have been online for the past two years, students are stressed they have lost writing practice. “Students fear that they will not be able to write properly in a conventional exam because they have lost the practice,” shared Dattatray Patil, a teacher-counsellor, who added students also worry that their online preparation may not be enough for offline exams.

For HSC students, the past two years have been mostly online. According to counsellors, even as the state board has introduced several student-friendly initiatives this year, including extra time, many are not aware of those.

One of the teacher-counsellors, Sajitha Sudheer, said, “Among the queries that I received, many have not really studied for the exam and were unaware of the question banks provided by the SCERT which can help in last-minute preparations.”

This is also because many HSC students do not have a proper connect with the teachers like they had with their school teachers.

“For HSC students, the institute was new when they took admission two years ago. In Mumbai, most of these colleges are attached to degree colleges which opened much later than schools. So, they have been online more. They lack the rapport with teachers,” added Sudheer.

Also, the number of calls the counsellors are getting isn’t as many as expected, considering the high stress levels around the exam this year.

Teacher-counsellor Jaywant Kulkarni said, “Even as several trained teacher-counsellors have been appointed, very few students know about them. The list of counsellors should be made public so that more students are able to benefit from it.”