Assam board to promote class 11 students without exam due to covid-19 pandemic

GUWAHATI: The Assam Higher Secondary Education Council (AHSEC) has decided to allow all Class XI students studying in institutions affiliated to it to be promoted to Class XII without a final examination.
With this, about 2.31 lakh students in Assam will be able to appear in the Class 12 state board examination next year, without passing their Class 11 exam. The Class 11 final examination, conducted by the AHSEC, was scheduled to begin from March 25, but had to be postponed indefinitely in view of the lockdown.A total of 2,31,238 candidates were registered to appear in the Class 11 examination from science, arts, commerce and vocational streams. The examination was scheduled to be held from March 25 to April 8.
Controller of examinations at AHSEC, Pankaj Borthakur said the decision of the examination committee of the council has been approved by the chairman on Tuesday night. A formal order to this effect is likely to be issued on April 10.
"The chairman of the AHSEC, after holding discussions with the examination department, has approved that the Class XI students will be promoted to Class XII automatically. They won't have to appear in the Class XI final examination. The decision has been taken in view of the prolonged lockdown amid the Covid-19 threat," Borthakur told TOI on Wednesday.
Union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' recently took to twitter to announce that he had asked the CBSE to promote students studying in classes I to VIII in CBSE-affiliated schools to the next grade in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also tweeted that the CBSE had also been asked to promote all class IX and XI students on the basis of internal assessment done in the respective schools.
In Assam, however, the promotion of students from classes I to IX is not an issue like other states since the final school examinations are conducted in December and new academic session starts from January.
However, the breakout of coronavirus has brought the process of declaring the class X and XII results of the state board examinations to a halt. AHSEC sources said the nationwide lockdown has affected the evaluation of the answer scripts of the Class XII examination across the 48 answer-script evaluation zones in Assam.
Though sources of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (Seba) said evaluation of the answer scripts of the Class X state board examination was over before the lockdown was announced, some other result-related work is pending.
Both AHSEC and Seba have not provided given any official update with regards to the dates of announcement of the results, but the board examinees are expecting their results on time, which is crucial for them to get admission in higher educational institutions outside the state.
"Everything is uncertain. We have no idea when the results will be declared and when college admission will begin. We hope the government will consider the students' concerns, especially those who are in Class XII, since it's a critical juncture of our career," Manjit Sharma, who took the Class XII exams this year, said.