SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
MARGAO: The educationists on Tuesday requested Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant to relieve the SSC students of their troubles by cancelling the Board examination, for which the State government was planning to declare the schedule after May 17, when the third phase of lockdown ends.
The demand is made to make sure that the students are relieved from mental torture. Educationists also suggested that the students can be promoted to the next higher class based on their past performance.
“All students, parents and management will be happy and thankful for your act of mercy and concern. Around 20,000 Goan students were enthusiastically waiting to answer their first Board examination of Class X which was scheduled to begin on April 2. However, a horrendous COVID-19 pandemic struck at the same time and the entire nation was forced to go under lockdown,” said Vithoba Desai, representative of All Goa Secondary Schools Association in his personal capacity.
"It has been a long ordeal for them, spending hours with their books, sleepless nights worrying about a crucial year of their career. This state of anxiety, fatigue, parental pressure and mental turmoil has taken a toll on students’ mental health. These young, tender minds do not deserve to be grilled in uncertainty,” he said.
Vithoba said that although our State is under the “Green Zone”, the risk factor in conducting examination is unparalleled. The officials are trying their best to find a way to conduct examination.
“But why do we spend their effort in trying to conduct exams when we can utilise it in finding better alternatives?” he asked.
"Why conduct examination for the sake of it? We cannot afford to subject all our students to the risk of infection. There are hundreds of students who are natives of other States and have left for their hometown already. How will the State confirm that all such students get a fair chance at answering the examination after they find a way to come back to the State and attend necessary medical obligations of quarantine?”
“Other challenges include arranging infrastructure in the backdrop of peak summer and official predictions of heat wave around the corner. Transport for students and parents, who travel to examination centres; maintaining social distancing for the whole chunk of persons involved in conducting, participating and evaluating the examination papers is just the tip of the iceberg," informed
Vithoba.
He requested the Chief Minister to devise an alternative for SSC examination and provide solace to students and parents.
