#PandemicTakeaways: Is it time to set apart competitive and Board exams for good?

The Engineering, Medical and Agriculture Common Entrance Test (EAMCET) notification for 2022 is expected to be out sometime next week and the students might be in for a surprise. The Telangana State Council for Higher Education (TSCHE) is planning on removing the 25 per cent weightage for intermediate Board exam marks which was allotted to the total EAMCET score of the candidates.

While TSCHE had decided last year to not include the 25 per cent weightage for the score on account of the pandemic, it seems set on doing away with the criteria for good this year, according to a report by the Times of India. Every year, the exam sees almost 1.5 lakh aspirants vying for a seat in Engineering, Medical and Agricultural courses in the state. Deliberations are on in earnest and an official decision on the matter is expected soon before the notification is out next week. TSCHE is also considering a reduction in the percentage of the intermediate syllabus to be studied for the EAMCET exam, after two consecutive years of the pandemic had forced the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) to reduce the syllabus by 30 per cent.

With the pandemic playing havoc with studies in the last couple of years, intermediate students in Telangana were found protesting against the first-year Board exams which were conducted in October last year, well after the students had been promoted to the second year. The students had claimed that their preparation had been severely impacted due to the lack of access to online education.

"Intermediate marks were not considered for EAMCET last year as well and this kind of leveled up the playing field. The cutoffs came down and the students who didn’t do that well in the intermediate exams managed to secure a good rank in EAMCET. It gives everyone an equal opportunity to do well. This should be the way forward as the competitive exam should be kept separate from Board exams," says Yasasvi Santosh, Director of the Spark Academy.