Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Board exams for the academic session 2021 were termianted for all the students due to the Covid-second wave. A section of students, however, who had registered for the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) as private candidate had to appear for exams.
CBSE class 12 board exams for private candidates started from August and concluded on September 15.
Post examination, students claimed that physics examination was particularly difficult.
Urging CBSE to be liberal with marking, private candidates said that it will be unfair for them if they were to be marked striclty. “The board has given liberal marks under ‘alternative assessment’ to regular students,” Jay Kamra, a student, said.
"The board is not being fair to us. We have to attempt offline exam and now, after a tough exam, our marks would be much lower,” 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 also took to the microblogging site with trending hashtags. They raised their appeal and posted their concerns under the hashtags #CBSE and #CBSEPrivateStudents.
Students approach the board
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.”
Student Vineet Joe added, “Comparatively all papers are tougher from last year. It seems there is some game-play behind it. 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.”
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.
