Some grave concerns regarding CBSE's plans to conduct exams for the session 2020-2021

 To

The Chairperson, CBSE

Shiksha Kendra 2 Community Centre

Preet Vihar

Delhi 110092

Subject: Some grave concerns regarding CBSE's plans to conduct exams for the session 2020-2021

Madam/Sir,

Lok Shikshak Manch would like to draw your urgent attention to and seek response regarding CBSE's plan to conduct board exams for class X and XII for the current academic session. To our mind, CBSE stands accused of causing immense financial, mental and emotional distress to students. It needs to answer the following questions -

1. Given that 2020 (session 2020-2021) has proven to be a highly disruptive year globally, and more so in India, we are shocked to know that CBSE intends to conduct the board exams as per the normal calendar schedule (as stated on page 186 of the CBSE document 'Framework and Significant Guidelines in the context of the Secondary and the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations' dated 01/09/2020). Whether upholding the pretence of routine, in the face of the fatal twin attack of Corona-Lockdown upon the people of this country, should be considered a mark of efficiency or criminal elitism?

2. Does CBSE recognize that its student population doesn't consist of a homogenous group? In fact, it consists of two groups separated from each other by a vast socio-economic disparity. On the one hand, secondary and senior-secondary students in most private schools would have experienced more or less smooth online classes since the beginning of the session, aided with individual attention from schools and private coachings, and well-cushioned by academic support at home. On the other hand, almost all students of these grades in government schools have been struggling since months to gain access to any meaningful online education. We are asking this because if CBSE recognizes this disparity then it would have not let secondary and senior secondary students spend last few months in utter mental agony and made suitable announcements to soothe their fears and distress.

3. What justification can it provide to treat at par the academic preparations of, respectively, a private school student with full and independent access to a personal laptop/tab, a group of siblings trying to 'study' from a single, small-screen smartphone at home, and a student with no access at all to online classes?

4. Doesn't the decision to go ahead with 'business as usual' amount to accepting and promoting the false and dangerous idea that education can be broken down into disjointed parts and imparted to students in capsules of 45 minute videos and worksheets? What about those established conceptions of education, enshrined in almost all policy documents and taught in all respectable education institutions, according to which it is a dialogic and continuous process where engagement with surroundings and peers is the key?

5. If students can understand concepts, undertake projects and perform practicals even without physically attending classes and schools, then what will be the need and justification for employing teachers and ensuring intensive classroom teaching-learning processes in subsequent years? 

6. Has it conducted any survey (not an online one) with class X and XII students in order to ascertain whether and to what extent are they feeling prepared for board exams and welcoming the same? If so, CBSE may kindly make the details and findings of the said report public.

7. When meaningful academic learning has not happened this year, then why can the session not be extended? We demand that no exams should be thrust upon students without ensuring a decent minimum of classroom teaching-learning. 

8. Which market and political forces are pushing the CBSE to conduct board exams in an insensitively routine manner at the cost of the mental well-being of students and the whole idea of education? In any case, the CBSE must make its compulsions public.

We hope that the CBSE will have answers to these questions, if not for the public, then, at least, for the students at its mercy. Surely, it owes a self-convincing response to uphold its own academic credentials. Moreover, it can still act in the interest of students and education and, thereby, let its actions speak louder than words.  

Thanking you