The education minister of India Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank held a live meeting addressing all the students and teachers Nationwide. The main concern was the upcoming Board Exams for the year 2021. The goal was to discuss the schedule of dates for the various exams such as the 10th & 12th Board exams, JEE, and NEET. Amid the on-going pandemic, education is among the few sectors of society that are enormously impacted. The shutting of schools and the introduction of online classes from home has entirely changed the face of the education system. Studying from home has become one difficult task for almost every student across the nation and even globally. Although online video interacting tools have been the greatest strength during this pandemic yet it could not add the human feel of interacting face to face. Also, technical issues like connectivity and availability of the Internet, specifically in rural India have closed the doors of online classes as well, leaving students with a big void in their education. Such students would be most vulnerable to failure if exams are conducted anytime sooner.

Early morning of 10 Dec. 20, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal released a notification on Twitter stating he will interact with students and teachers via webinar and to discuss concerns regarding upcoming board and competitive exams like JEE Main and NEET 2021. The moment after his notification, hashtag #EducationMinisterGoesLive started trending on Twitter. Teachers, Students, and their families started tweeting with a majority of them seeking postponing of these exams.

However, the education minister citing the example of conducting major events like ‘Bihar Elections’ and ‘Conduct of NEET Exam 2020’ during this pandemic, denied the postponing of exams. “We’ll declare exam dates well in advance for students to prepare accordingly” the education minister added.

The minister also stated that if the current situation of pandemic gets worse, only then the government would consider postponing these exams. He suggested students should prepare by keeping in mind that these exams will not be canceled as the government is trying to constrain the spread of covid-19 and will soon achieve its goal as vaccine trials are under the last stage of approval.

“Government is planning to reopen the school in non-containment zones, specifically for conducting practical exams for class 10th and 12th as these exams required lab training. However, students are suggested to strictly follow SOPs provided by GOI” said the Education Minister of India in his Webinar.

“In case, the government is unable to reopen schools then the marking scheme of Board exams which presently include Descriptive plus Practical scores will be changed and there might be complete marking for just the descriptive test” He added.

The government has also decided to reduce the syllabus by 30 percent in board and 10-20 percent in JEE Mains to compensate for the inaccessibility to education. The government also changed the exam pattern by introducing a ‘Multiple Choice Question’ format for the upcoming exams.