Considering the rise in the number of COVID cases in Maharashtra, the state government on Monday decided to postpone state board exams for class 10th and 12th, news agency ANI reported. Maharashtra Education Minister informed on Monday, "We’ve postponed state board exams for class 10th and 12th. Class 12th exams will be held by end of May, while 10th standard exams will be in June. Fresh dates will be announced accordingly."
Last week, the state government had announced that all students in Class 9 and Class 11 will be passed without taking exams, while a similar decision was taken for the students of Class 1-8 earlier in the month.
Maharashtra on Sunday reported its highest-ever single-day spike of coronavirus cases as the state added over 63,000 positive cases in the last 24 hours. With 63,294 new Covid-19 cases, the state now has 34,07,245 cases since the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, according to the health bulletin. However, the surge in the number of cases comes in the backdrop of a record 263,137 tests done in the last 24 hours.
The Union Health Ministry on Monday said, ten states - Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan account for 83.02 per cent of the new Covid-19 infections.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Shiv Sena have written separately to union education ministry to develop a national consensus and possibly reschedule the Class 10 and 12 CBSE and other school board exams.
Cabinet minister in Maharashtra Aditya Thackeray tweeted, “Yesterday, South Mumbai (MP) Arvind Sawant ji has written to Union Min, HRD for national consensus and central guidance on 10th/12th exams instead of various states taking different decisions that will affect student lives & careers for CBSE, ICSE, IB, GCSE & state boards."
Similarly, Vadra, wrote a letter to Pokhriyal, underlining the apprehensions of “lakhs of children and parents from all over India". He letter said, “... it is not just the students who will be at risk but also their teachers, invigilators and family members... as state after state issues guidelines preventing the assembly of large numbers of people in public places, what moral ground can we stand on while forcing children to do exactly that."
The letter from two political parties comes amid a growing demand from students' community to reschedule the CBSE board exam as the country is witnessing a massive surge in coronavirus cases across states and the ones like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi reporting much higher number of cases every day.
(With inputs from agencies)
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