Gujarat government has decided not to consider the option of mass promotion of school students due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.
State Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama stated that school exams will be held and students would be evaluated before being promoted to the next academic session.
Chudasama stated in the media, “Schools in Gujarat will conduct exams for class 1-8 and 9 and 11 to evaluate the students on the basis of the syllabus taught online.”
“If the entire syllabus has not been taught online due to the corona pandemic, the students will be evaluated on basis of the limited syllabus taught,” he added.
Chudasama also said, “A high-level meeting of all stakeholders will decide the mode of the exams. The most suitable mode will be adopted.”
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He further informed that all options for the mode of exams are being reviewed and the one most suitable would be finalized. The first option to be considered is to give question papers to the students to solve at home that will be evaluated by the teachers. The other option is to assemble the students in batches at the schools to take the final exam in a phased manner.
While the third option is to hold online exams. Although it is least suitable considering that most of the students in rural areas have very limited access to smartphones, computers or wifi connection to appear for online examinations.
Bharat Gajipara, President of Gujarat Self-Financed School Management Association, revealed that exams should be held to validate online teaching. "If students are mass promoted, the credibility of online teaching will be lost," added Gajipara.
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However, the parent's collective, All Gujarat Vali Mandal, had urged that the government should declare mass promotion for school students considering that schools have remained shut for almost the entire academic year now.
Many supported the decision to scrap the exams and students to be promoted to the next class as online teaching hampered in the rural areas. Although the state government had stated that it would evaluate all options, most likely mass promotion was not much in favour.
Apart from this, there is continuous pressure of school managements on the government to reopen the schools because a section of parents has not paid fees yet due to no physical teaching in schools.
A school trustee added, "If the schools are opened, parents will be encouraged to pay the fee which is much needed for the schools to absorb the financial loss impacted due to the Corona pandemic.”
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