Even as the Kerala High Court ordered an extension of the last date for submitting applications for Plus One courses in State higher secondary schools by a day, the State government opposed further extension of the deadline saying that the interest of students who passed the SSLC examination would be adversely affected.
‘CBSE, a national board’
The submission was made by the government pleader when a writ petition filed by Ameen Salim and another CBSE Class X student from Malappuram seeking a directive to extend the time to enable them to file applications for the State Plus One course came up for hearing.
Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan, while ordering to continue its earlier interim directive to keep open the last date for filing applications till July 22, observed that it could not ignore the fact that the entire academic schedule was disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the CBSE was a national board, and the delay of a day or two could not be a reason to deprive the students of Kerala who had been pursuing their education in the CBSE stream till Class X to migrate to the State board.
‘4 lakh students waiting’
The government in a statement further said that more than a month had passed since the declaration of the results of the SSLC examination. In fact, over 4 lakhs students are waiting to secure admission to Plus One and any further delay would derail the entire admission process. The government was prepared to give options to CBSE students to apply in the supplementary allotment process.
The government also submitted that there was no indication about the probable date of publication of the CBSE Class X examination even now. The Plus One classes were scheduled to commence on August 17. Even then, it would be a challenging task to meet 200 working days during the academic year of 2022-23.
The counsel for the CBSE submitted that he had no positive instructions as regards the date on which the CBSE intended to publish the Class X results. The delay had occurred due to the pandemic, and the CBSE could not be blamed for the delay in publishing the results.
