The school principals believe that the postponement of board exams will not be a right move as it will impact the schedule of higher education entrance exams and admission processes as well, which will be disturbing for students.

The Delhi government had last month written to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to not conduct the board exams next year before May and further reduce syllabus as schools still continue to remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had also raised the issue at NCERT’s council meeting last month chaired by Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.

“Postponing the board exams can have some serious repercussions on the students’ growth and performance preparing via remote learning. As this session was attributed to getting familiar with remote learning tools, by both the students and teachers,” said Priyanka Barara, Principal, Delhi International School.

“With no concrete update on vaccines, we don’t see parents allowing their wards to return to school. Therefore, we would not like to repeat the pattern of losing time again by supporting the delay in board exams,” she added.

Alka Kapur, Principal, Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, who is also the President of Delhi Sahodaya School Complex, said, a survey was conducted to get feedback from principals and teachers of over 100 schools, on the issue.

“We asked this very question that when should the examinations be conducted? By an overwhelming majority, the school authorities suggested that the board examinations should not be postponed beyond March 15. Also CBSE board result for class 12 and higher education entrance exams are interlinked, therefore postponement of exams any further could cause unnecessary confusion.

“Secondly, we also unanimously agreed that it is best not to reduce the syllabus any further and that the students should get a gap of at least 3 to 4 days between subsequent exams. Another point that was raised was that we should try to conduct practicals in the offline format only by calling students in small groups,” she said.

Kalpana Dwivedi, Principal St Joseph’s High School, CBSE Panvel, said, “the exams should not be postponed further, the theory portion will be completed in due time. And practical portion can be dealt with-in Jan-Feb 2021, hence, exams can be conducted in mid March 2021 in consideration with existing situation.”