The Centre, ICSE and the CBSE on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that they have decided to cancel the Class X and XII examinations scheduled from July 1-15 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and they would be conducted later. But this also casts a shadow on the fate of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main) which were scheduled to be held in the month of July as well. According to the SC ruling, NTA is set to make its decision to postpone the JEE Main and NEET examinations this evening.
PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss on Wednesday told The Hindu that the NEET exam for this year should be cancelled and State government should be allowed to conduct medical counselling based on Class XII marks. "In India, except for a few States, the public examinations for Class XII have not been finished. Even in the CBSE stream, the exams that were scheduled between March 19 and 31 were postponed and rescheduled to July 1-15. But, in States were CBSE schools are more and in cities where Covid-19 spread is increasing by the day, there is no respite in sight that the spread would decrease in one or two weeks. The CBSE seems to have taken the decision after parents had requested for a cancellation," he said.
The HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal also tweeted in the morning, “I have advised the @ugc_india to revisit the guidelines issued earlier for intermediate and Terminal Semester examinations and academic calendar. The foundation for revisited guidelines shall be health and safety students, teachers and staff.”
A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar was apprised by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that a scheme has been formulated to assess the performance of class XII students on the basis of their performance in last examinations. The top court was also informed that the students will have the liberty to opt either for the examinations, to be conducted later, or go with the assessment process based on past performance. The court was hearing pleas seeking scrapping of remaining exams of Class XII scheduled from July 1-15 in view of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases.
NEET and JEE Main were scheduled to be held in the month of July. The National Testing Agency and the MHRD, reportedly, have been keeping close tabs on the hearing as the decision may affect JEE Main 2020 and NEET 2020 as well. Amid all the uncertainty surrounding these exams, many students and parents are now demanding for it to be postponed further and have taken to Twitter with the hashtag #NoExamsinCOVID. Neither the HRD Ministry nor the NTA — the testing authority — have, however, released any indication of postponing the exams yet. Some have also raised their voices for cancellation of entrance exams as well and to grant admissions to the students based on merit positions. However, that might be unfair to a few students.
