TN govt to talk to teachers, students, parents and docs before deciding the fate of state board Class XII exams

The Tamil Nadu government will come to a decision on whether they should be conducting Class XII board exams in two days as they want feedback from all those involved — teachers, parents, students, health experts and educationists. School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi announced this on Wednesday and added that the school education department will hold massive online meetings and ask for suggestions online as well as on the helpline numbers for the next two days.

In view of the uncertain conditions due to COVID and the feedback obtained from various stakeholders across the board, the Central Government on Tuesday said that the CBSE and ICSE Class XII Board exams will not be held this year. It was also decided that CBSE will take steps to compile the results of Class XII students as per well-defined objective criteria in a time-bound manner. However, the government has not yet specified how or on what the students will be evaluated. After this decision was made public, Chief Minister M K Stalin held a meeting with Anbil Mahesh on Wednesday.

"The central government took a decision to cancel the CBSE Class XII exams when most of the states were in favour of conducting the exams at a recent meeting chaired by defence minister Rajnath Singh. The CM wanted us to get the opinion from teachers, parents, students, health experts and educationists in two days before taking a call on Class XII exams. He also wanted to know the stand of other state governments on cancelling the Class XII exams within two days," Mahesh told the media. "Students' health is very important to us. At the same time, the Class XII exams and marks are also important for students. At present, there are mixed opinions about the cancellation of board exams. There is no clarity on the issue. We will come to a decision based on a majority of the views," he said.

Earlier, the state government was in favour of conducting the board exams and conveyed it to the Centre at the education ministers meeting held last week. The school education department was also planning to announce the board exam schedule after COVID-19 cases come down.