The Board of School Education Haryana (BSEH)’s directive to hold annual exams for all Class VIII students in government and private schools, irrespective of the education board they are affiliated to, has stirred a controversy.
The CBSE-affiliated school managements as well as parents of students have strongly opposed the directive.
A few private school associations have now decided to move the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the matter.
Haryana Progressive Schools’ Conference (HPSC) president S.S. Gusain said the fresh communique by the BSEH is an attempt at “backdoor entry” to hold exams through the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). He said that the HPSC would challenge the order in the court.
The Haryana government had in last November come out with directions to re-introduce board exams for Classes V and VIII in all schools to be conducted by the BSEH to improve the standard of education, but had withdrawn the order in January after a few associations of CBSE-affiliated schools moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging the legal validity of the order.
RTE amendment
However, the government came out with a notification on January 18 to amend the Right to Education Act and appointed SCERT, Haryana, as the “Academic Authority” to hold exams for Classes V and VIII. The SCERT in turn entrusted the BSEH with the task of holding exams for the two classes through a letter on January 28.
The BSEH in its letter to district education officers on February 4 directed that all schools must register with the board by February 15 for holding of exams for Class VIII in March this year. The board decided not to conduct exams for Class V this year.
Col. K. Pratap Singh, who runs Colonel’s Central Academy School in Gurugram, Sector-4, said the government seems adamant to conduct exams when the schools are finding it difficult to even conduct exams for Classes X and XII. “It is absolutely meaningless. The students of Class VIII are yet to return to school after the COVID third wave. We don’t even know how long it might take for them to return to school,” said Col. Singh. He added that CBSE schools had a well-settled evaluation system in place and there was no need for BSEH to hold exams for the students of these schools.
Several parents have also opposed the move saying that uncertainty regarding the format, syllabus and schedule of the exams for Class VIII students at the fag end of the session was not good and that the Haryana Board should have informed about it at the beginning of the session.
“My son’s school has been conducting Class VIII exams as per the CBSE format for Class X and XII board exams with 50% syllabus for each 40 marks Term I and Term II exams. The Term II exams are scheduled from February 21. But the BSEH proposes to hold exams for the entire syllabus and for 80 marks. This new order by the BSEH has created a lot of confusion,” said one of the parents whose son studies at Heritage Xperential Learning School in Gurugram Sector-62.
