Edits | June 2, 2021
On a lighter note the students yesterday were of the view that PM Modi has gathered all the votes of 18+ and the votes of their parents running into many crores by the announcement. The cancellation of board exams being announced by PM Modi himself, while the education minister Mr Pokhriyal, admitted in AIIMS, New Delhi, being treated for Covid, may be said to be another Modi masterstroke. PM Modi has been caught off guard this time around. Unable to open the Parliament and most of the country, he is compelled to cancel the exams. At the present time most of the southern states of India are reeling under heavy infection, there have been losses in life in many families and the ecosystem for peaceful education seems to have been demolished.
On the lighter note, if boards were not cancelled Indians would have been criticized for not caring enough about the lives of young students. Now when boards have been cancelled there is criticism that it’s done to enhance the vote bank. Seriously speaking, it is a great decision on restoring the health crisis and the spread of Covid virus, and the next general election is too far off. However as was expected, it will devastatingly impact future careers of turned 18+ population. Students now may have to answer their educators and employers for the validity of subject marks allotted. Marks have not been obtained. India may now have a 99% marks result for all reasonably good students making the eligibility and furtherance of higher education very complicated. Further the students will have to be botched with the issue that these marks have been allotted and not obtained for the rest of their working life.
Going forward the students may exercise two options:. First, to appear for higher education competitive exams which bring out the merit in them. Two, to get into the young peoples’ career by quickly securing a job, and then complete their education at a later stage, when the Covid crisis may have thinned down.
Consequent to the cancellation of CBSE board exams, the higher education institutions will be at a stress, to solve the puzzle of how to enroll 12 class graduated students. This is in light of the fact that CBSE board itself may become defunct in a few years, and the board exams are to be conducted by individual state boards. This decision pre-empts the process of change in central education all over India, but complicates intake enrolment, which is dependent upon reservation policy and related judgements as prescribed under law in education and that India is a union for the process of education. The only recourse remains, each higher education institution, conducting their own entrance exams. And that is a very laborious, complicated process.
Since the present Covid crisis is not going to go away anytime soon, it makes sense for students to evaluate an equivalent board exam, which takes away the blame whether the marks were allotted to them or obtained by them in 2021.
CA Divesh Nath Editor Woman’s Era LinkedIn: Divesh Nath