Kochi: The practice of the Central Board of Secondary Education to conduct Class X and Class XII annual board exams on almost all Saturdays is causing heartburns among bank officials and parents who point out that, in contrast, Kerala state annual school exams do not happen on Fridays and Saturdays.
“Banks have holidays on second and fourth Saturdays, and because the question papers are kept in bank lockers, we are forced to open the branches on these days to give them to school officials. This is an inconvenience to us which could be avoided,” said a bank official preferring not to be named.
Interestingly, Saturday is a holiday for CBSE offices nationwide, and it is not applicable in the cases of exams conducted by schools affiliated to the board.
When contacted, CBSE controller of examinations K. K. Choudhury told DC over the phone from New Delhi that the board was forced to conduct exams on Saturdays as it had to hold annual board exams in 250 subjects for both Class X and XII and there is no other way out.
“The bank officials and school officials are co-operating with us, and we are thankful to them for that,” Mr Choudhury said. “Recently the courts were petitioned on the conduct of exams on Easter Saturday and the court asked us to look into the matter. We decided to conduct the exam, and it passed off without any complaints or trouble,” he said.
