West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today announced that the exams for Class 10 and Class 12 have been cancelled. The CM gave the decision furing a meeting at Nabanna secretariat building.
Three days after forming an expert panel to check the feasibility of conducting board exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the West Bengal school education department on Sunday had shared email ids and sought public opinion on the matter within 24 hours. The six-member expert committee, comprising the head of the secondary board, the chief of state child rights protection panel, a doctor and academics, had already submitted its report to the government on Saturday, but its recommendations have not been made public.
A member of the panel, however, told PTI that he and the others have unanimously agreed that conducting offline exams, both for Class 10 and Class 12 students, was not realistic, under the present circumstances.
Opinions, however, differed about the next course of action -- if an open book examination system would be more apt for the students or an online assessment.
The school education department, in a notice issued on Sunday, said, views of the public are being sought on "whether to conduct or not conduct the Madhyamik/Uchha Madhyamik examinations 2021. If yes, suggestions should be made on the mode of conducting the examinations." The department had also sought views about the possible criteria for assessment.
Meanwhile, West Bengal's COVID-19 tally rose to 14,26,132 on Sunday (June 6) as 7,002 more people tested positive for the infection, while 107 fresh fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 16,259, a health bulletin said.
North 24 Parganas district reported the highest number of fresh fatalities at 34, followed by 23 in Kolkata. Fifty-three of the deaths were due to comorbidities where COVID-19 was incidental.
(With agency inputs)
