Indore
Though this year again, due to Covid-19 second wave, board exams were cancelled for almost all the students, a section of students who had registered for the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) in private mode appeared for exams.
CBSE Class 12 board exams for private candidates started from August and will concluded on September 15. Following conduction of these offline exams, students claimed that physics examination was particularly difficult.
Urging CBSE to be liberal with marking, private candidates claim that it will be unfair for them. “The board has given liberal marks under ‘alternative assessment’ to regular students,” Jay Kamra, a student, said.
He added that the board is not being fair to them. “We have to attempt offline exam and now, after a tough exam, our marks would be much lower impacting our future,” Kamra added.
Gunjan Patel, another candidate, said, “Our chances of getting admission into good colleges will be severely affected if we are unable to score well or at least at par with regular candidates, who passed with flying colours as evaluation was done by school without exams.”
Raising such issues, students have approached and urged CBSE to provide leniency in checking and award grace marking if needed in results.
Private CBSE candidates are approaching the board by trending various hashtags on Twitter. They want to raise their appeal and are posting their concerns under the hashtags #CBSE and #CBSEPrivateStudents.
Students approach the board
A teacher Vani Mehrotra wrote, “Flooded with CBSE students' concerns regarding exam question papers, specifically of Physics. Many have said the Physics paper was tough. Students are now demanding the board to provide grace marks.”
A student Vineet Joe added, “Comparatively all papers are tougher from last year, there is some game-play behind it seems. Personally feels like they want students to fail.”
Another said, “Class 12th Physics and Chemistry paper was tough. Please give grace marks; otherwise, we will lose another year.”
“Almost 90% of students reported that the Physics question paper was tough. It contained unexpected questions. We request CBSE to normalize and provide grace marks,” said Sam.
Many students stated that the questions came from topics that were omitted from the syllabus by the Central Board.
The marking scheme
As the pandemic globally gripped the lifeline of the masses, schools and colleges shut their campuses in March 2020.
The board could not conduct the Class 10 and 12 exams and opted for an alternate scheme to declare the result. Class 12 board result was declared on July 30, while for Class 10 the result declaration happened on August 3. The improvement and compartment exams for the private candidates were conducted in offline mode in various designated centres.
