Schools, students, and parents preparing for offline Board examinations

AMRITSAR: After holding months of online classes and conducting examinations in a distant mode, not only the schools but the students as well as parents are preparing themselves for offline board examinations of class 10 and 12 even as a large number of parents are still reluctant in sending their children to schools in wake of coronavirus pandemic.
“Schools are holding online classes for past nearly ten months, both the children and teachers have adapted to the new system of education which is necessitated by the outbreak of the pandemic , I think board examinations should also be conducted in a distant mode” opined Aarti Ahuja, mother of a 12th standard student of a private school while talking to TOI on Saturday.
While expressing differences over reopening of schools in a staggered manner,Rajneesh Kumar, father of a class 10th student said “Everybody knows that corona virus is still in the air, reluctantly, but we are forced to give the consent letter to schools as mandated for the student to attend the classes, the government should promote online education and examinations at least for some more time” he said.
In the recent past, the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) has announced to hold class 10 and 12 examinations offline in the month of May following which schools have also started re-opening and holding offline classes and pre-board examinations.
“So far the CBSE has given the indication that the examinations of class 10 and 12 will be held in an offline mode in the month of May and we are already busy discussing the modalities for the board as well as in house examinations,” said the principal of Spring Dal Senior School Rajiv Sharma.
He said the schools would like the students to prepare in the offline mode in the school in form of pre-board exams so they could have some written practice for the offline mode.
When asked about the response of students and their parents toward offline examinations Rajiv said “There is a divided opinion on this, there are some issues prominently among them is the transportation system which majority of parents find it difficult to cope up and secondly we have to follow the covid 19 SOP’s also which means we have to bring the children in the campus in a staggered manner for a shorter duration” he said.
The principal of Khalsa College Public School A S Gill said that students of standard 9th onward were coming to the schools for past nearly one and a half to two months .” We have already conducted pre-board examination offline and another examination will be conducted in near future exactly as par the guidelines of the CBSE” he said adding that there was an encouraging response from the students since they had sufficient time for offline preparations of board examinations.