TED Newsdesk, Mumbai: More than 73,000 students in standard X and over 1.31 lakh students in standard XII who failed their board exams in 2019 are now left amidst a chaos with no clarity as to when the supplementary examinations would be held. In fact, they ae now fearing whether the exams will be held at all and if so, what if it is too late for college admissions. Officials from the Maharashtra Education Board have said that the examinations will be conducted once the COVID-19 situation improves.
In brief: no date yet for the Maha Board supplementary exam. Maharashtra State Board supplementary examinations for standards X and XII, normally held in July and August, have been put off because of the pandemic, and the board says it will hold them once conditions improve.
Shakuntala Kale, chairperson of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Education said that because of the current COVID-19 situation, no decision on supplementary examinations has been made so far. “Everything is closed including schools. Otherwise, the Board would have held the exams by now. But unfortunately, this year one cannot predict when the situation on the ground normalises.”
Maha Board supplementary exam: Maharashtra State Board supplementary examinations on hold
The delay was confirmed earlier this month. On 2 September the state’s School Education Minister, Varsha Gaikwad, told reporters in Mumbai that the examinations for students who had failed the standard X and XII board papers, which she said are generally held in October in such years, would be postponed because of the COVID-19 situation, according to PTI. She said a decision on timing would depend on how things stood in November or December.
The numbers waiting are a small share of the year’s candidates but large in absolute terms. The board’s main results this summer recorded a pass rate of 95.3 per cent for standard X and 90.66 per cent for standard XII, according to Scroll. For the students who missed out, the Maha Board supplementary exam, Maharashtra State Board supplementary examinations in all but name, is the only route to a pass this year without losing an academic session.
The examinations are run through the board’s nine divisional boards, at Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Kolhapur, Konkan, Latur, Aurangabad and Amravati, according to the Free Press Journal’s later reporting of the results. A single state timetable has to cover candidates in all nine divisions, from the Konkan coast to Vidarbha.
Since 2015, the Maharashtra Board has been conducting supplementary exams in July-August, and declaring the results by August end. This makes it convenient for students to apply for admissions to the next level of education. However, without a clear schedule in the current scenario, the major fear for students of classes X and XII is that they might miss out on the admission season for 2020. This fear has become more valid with the conclusion of FYJC round I on Thursday and the commencement of undergraduate admission processes for most universities in the country.
Students and parents have also expressed their concerns, citing this delay as a major obstacle in academic plans for the coming months. A parent said, “My son has filled up FYJC forms. He has failed in one subject which means he is allowed to keep the term (ATKT) and apply. But it would be easier for him to prepare if they declare the date.” A student expressed her disheartened situation by comparing the supplementary examinations by the Board with the recently conducted NEET and JEE. “If exams like NEET and JEE can be conducted, why can’t the Board conduct supplementary examinations? These are national exams with lakhs of students,” she wrote.
How the national examinations went ahead
The student’s comparison with the national entrance tests reflects what happened only days ago. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical courses was held on 13 September with strict precautions. More than 15.97 lakh candidates had registered, and Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said around 85 to 90 per cent of them sat the paper, according to PTI. The National Testing Agency had raised the number of centres from 2,546 in 2019 to 3,862 to allow for distancing.
A national agency running one paper in thousands of centres is a different exercise from a state board running a full timetable of subject papers, with practical work, for two separate classes. But the contrast has sharpened the pressure on the board. The Education Daily has reported separately on the dates set for the CBSE compartment examinations, which give students of the central board a fixed timetable that Maharashtra’s candidates still lack.
Whether the situation normalises soon or the board will finally make a decision, only time will tell. The fact remains that students are disheartened and inconvenienced due to the sluggishness of the decision by the board.
What has happened since
The delayed Maha Board supplementary exam, Maharashtra State Board supplementary examinations for both classes, began on 20 November 2020. The board released the timetables on 20 October, Scroll reported. The standard X papers ran until 5 December and the standard XII general and bifocal papers until 10 December, according to the Free Press Journal.
The results were declared on 23 December. Across the state’s nine divisional boards, 41,397 standard X candidates sat the re-examination and 13,495 passed, a pass rate of 32.60 per cent, up from 22.86 per cent the year before. At standard XII, 69,274 sat and 12,751 passed, a pass rate of 18.41 per cent, down from 23.17 per cent, the Free Press Journal reported. In the Mumbai division, 3,779 of the 12,646 standard X candidates passed, a rate of 29.88 per cent against 14.48 per cent a year earlier, and 3,728 of the 22,700 standard XII candidates passed, 16.42 per cent against 19.12 per cent.
Both totals are well below the 73,000 and 1.31 lakh students who had been waiting for a date in September. “Students who have passed in Class 10 re-exams will be considered in the subsequent admission rounds of First Year Junior College,” a senior officer of the state school education department told the newspaper, adding that those who cleared the standard XII papers could apply for higher education.
