On Monday an Assam group of students asked the Supreme Court to cancel Class 10 and Class 12 state board exams to ensure equality with CBSE and others that have annulled their exams. They also challenged the criteria of the state government for faulty testing.
“Classification sought to be made in present case between CBSE (Central Board Of Secondary Education), CISE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examination) and other state board students on one hand and the students of Assam SEBA (Secondary Education Board of Assam) and AHSEC (Assam Higher Secondary Education Council) on the other hand are prima facie irrational, unreasonable and is bad in law on the ground of violation of the basic feature of our Constitution, namely the principles of equality enshrined under Article 14,” the application said.
Several countries have announced the cancellation of the CBSE board exams to protect students against coronavirus infections. CBSE and other boards of education stated that they would develop an alternative mechanism to assess the performance of students. But Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that in the middle of July, if the state positive Covid-19 rate drops below 2% by July 1 the state would conduct the board examinations.
“The questions papers are likely to be multiple-choice ones, allowing students to score good marks. The exams will be held following Covid-19 protocol provided the positivity rate drops below 2%. If it is above that, we will ask schools to evaluate the students,” he said last week.
The students who are seeking to participate in other petitions on the same subject submitted to the Supreme Court also questioned the logic of the state government and said that the positive rate on 1 July might not be relevant on the date the tests are being proposed.
The application filed by lawyer Manu Jetley stated, “The positive rating data are very dynamic in nature which can be exponentially increased or decreased within less than 24 hours.”
The test positivity rate refers to the percentage of samples tested which show that the infection is positive in a region.
The case was denied comment by two independent health experts saying the question was sub judge.
