Guwahati:
Seventy five to eighty Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools across the Northeast Indian states will now be reopened to start evaluation of class 10 and class 12 board exam answer papers.
After the Central Government announced the re-opening of 3,000 evaluation centres across the country, students and parents in Northeastern India were left with questions lingering in their minds.
Putting an end to some of these queries, Guwahati's CBSE Director KK Choudhury informed THE SENTINEL DIGITAL that 75-80 CBSE-affiliated schools in green and orange zones will be opened for the evaluation of answer sheets. "Only the teachers will come for evaluating the papers and the Principal's Office will be opened during the process. If the number of teachers coming in to evaluate the copies becomes too high, we will have to observe the social distancing protocol prescribed by health experts", he told us.
Choudhary says that the number of schools being opened here is lesser in comparison to the rest of the country because of a lesser number of students. "In the entire Northeast region, CBSE-affiliated schools only number 1,125. The number of students, in general, is much lesser than that of other regions in India, which is why we are only opening a handful of schools for the evaluation process."
So when will be evaluation process begin? "We are in the process of preparations, so the process shall begin by tomorrow, perhaps", Choudhury told us.
Reacting to the Assam government's directive asking all private schools to waive 50% fees for the month of April in view of the pandemic situation, Chaudhary said that the board does not have any say in this particular matter. "As far as the CBSE board is concerned, we cannot lay down any fee structures of the schools; we don't have any guidelines. Thus, we instruct that the fees should be collected as per the facilities that are being provided by the school in question"", he said.
For students across the nation, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has been fraught with uncertainty. After the schools were closed down, simultaneously with the nationwide lockdown that left 1.3 billion Indian shut indoors, students – including ones who had to appear exams – were left with a bunch of questions. Even the board exams scheduled to complete by March-April had to be halted after the coronavirus landed on Indian shores.
Now, the Government seems to be trying to answer some of those questions. Recently, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal informed that the CBSE will conduct the pending class 10 and 12 board exams from July 1 to July 15.
Government Approval to Open 3,000 Schools for Evaluation:
The approval came to re-open the schools to evaluate answer sheets of Class 10 and 12 students came on Saturday following a request made by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry. Along with 3000 schools, the home ministry said 16 regional offices of the central board can start operation while following covid-19 guidelines. The approval, however, forbids schools to open normal academic activities like class room teaching.