After the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Wednesday directed the CBSE and all educational institutions in the country to postpone exams till March 31, the Central Board of Secondary Education postponed the ongoing Class 10, 12 examinations in view of the coronavirus outbreak. "While maintenance of academic calendar and exam schedule is important, equally important is safety and security of students who are appearing in various examinations as also of their teachers and parents," HRD secretary Amit Khare said in an official communication.
"All the ongoing examinations, including CBSE board exams, to be postponed till March 31 and rescheduled thereafter," he added.
The announcement came after the MHRD directive. "All ongoing CBSE examinations in India and abroad postponed till March 31 and will be rescheduled thereafter. After an assessment of the situation," CBSE Secretary Anurag Tripathi said. "All ongoing evaluation work will be suspended during the period," he added.
The CBSE has also directed board examination centres to ensure sitting arrangement with adequate distance between students to contain the coronavirus spread. "It shall be the responsibility of examination centres to ensure that candidates for board exams are seated at distance of one metre from one another. For wherever the size of the room doesn't permit that, the examinees can be split into other rooms. The exam invigilators should wear masks or cover face with handkerchiefs during exams," CBSE Controller of Exams Sanyam Bhardwaj said in an advisory.
Earlier, the board had allowed the use of sanitisers and masks in the exam hall to ensure safety of students from the virus.
Following the directive from the MHRD, National Testing Agency (NTA) which had scheduled JEE Main exams in April, has also postponed the engineering entrance exam. The JEE Main exams were scheduled on April 5, 7-9 and 11. The new dates for the exam will only be announced on March 31. The delay in JEE Main examination means there might be some delay in the conduct of JEE Advanced 2020. There are no changes to the NEET UG 2020 schedule yet. The exam was scheduled to be held in May.
