Chennai: The Madras high court has declined to postpone or reduce the syllabus or set separate question paper for the flood affected areas of Tamil Nadu in respect of X and XII CBSE board examinations, scheduled to be held in March 2016.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana closed a Public Interest Litigation filed by advocate P.R. Balasubramanian. According to petitioner, the students of CBSE schools in the flood affected areas of TN were physically, emotionally, psychologically and financially affected and thus, were deserved to be classified as a weaker section of the society due to this sudden natural calamity.
This disaster had put the students in a disadvantageous and disabled situation to perform on par with the other CBSE students who were out of this disaster crisis. The inequality had thus peeped into their lives due to the disaster.
The future of the children was decided only in the competitive exams (10th and 12th). If the authorities do not come to the rescue of these affected children, their future will be ruined, he added.
The bench said in the calamity in the state, the citizens have risen to the occasion to deal with the same. Thus, whether it was the adults or the children, given the situation, would always face some problem till the rehabilitation process was over. The petitioner now seeks to raise the issue that the examination for the CBSE for persons in TN should be postponed or their syllabus reduced. The second request was out of question as students all over the country take the examination and there cannot be different parameters for different set of students, the bench added.
The bench said as far as the first request was concerned the board exams were to be held in the month of March. “We are informed by the counsel for CBSE that endeavour to support the students has already been made by increasing the time period in schools. We are not saying that there is not a difficult task ahead of the students, but then the CBSE examination is not an examination by itself, but has repercussions in terms of further admissions and those processes are also scheduled according to certain time period, where candidates from all over the country are affected. We are sure, the students from the state would rise to the occasion to meet the difficult situation and the CBSE, the state government and the central government would make all endeavours to support them in facing this task”, the bench added.
Half yearly exams to begin from Jan 11
Half yearly examination for schools, which were postponed due to the deluge, will now begin from January 11. For both students of plus-2 and class 10, the examination will start from January 11 and end on January 27. The exams will start with the language paper. With the dates being announced, schools say they will now work to ensure that portions are completed and students get sufficient time to revise.
B. Purushothaman, senior principal of Everwin Matriculation Higher secondary school, said that every year they finish the syllabus by November, but this year due to rain they are yet to finish the syllabus. “This time we lost a month because of the flood. But still we have sufficient time to finish the syllabus. Before Christmas we are planning to finish the syllabus,” he said. He said that the school would have holiday from December 23 to December 27. “From December 28, we will start giving revision from December 28,” he said.
Headmaster of Arignar Anna Higher Secondary School R. Edison said, that it was a sound decision to start the examination from January 11. “We thought the half yearly examination will begin from January 4 but instead it’s January 11. We got time as well and our students will be prepared for the examination,” he said.
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
