Delhi pollution forces closure: Schools rush to tweak academic calendars for board exam preparations

New Delhi
A day after the Delhi government imposed a blanket ban on in-person lessons for all classes, irrespective of whether they had board exams in the academic year, school principals said they have started changing the academic calendars to ensure students of classes 10 and 12 can save time in the run-up to board exams, while simultaneously ensuring they are in good health.
Generally, most schools conduct pre-board exams for classes 10 and 12, and unit tests for other classes in November. “The mock exam for classes 10 and 12 were supposed to start from Wednesday,” said Tania Joshi, principal of The Indian School, adding that following the pre-boards, crash courses are held from mid-December to help students.
“To maximise utilisation of online classes, we have swapped the November and December schedule. We are conducting the crash course now and will hold the exams later,” Joshi said.
Principals of multiple schools said that last-minute changes and arrangements were needed to effectively prepare students. “Classes 12 and 10 students were to have their last pre-board exams on November 20 and 22, respectively. After getting the DoE notification (on closure), we had to let students know that the same have been postponed to November 25 and 27,” said Sudha Acharya, principal of ITL Pubic School, Dwarka.
Acharya said, “We hope that the situation improves and we switch back to offline mode soon. Exams cannot be conducted online.”
Most parents were happy with the decision to shut schools, but many were equally concerned about the preparations for board exams.
Aprajita Gautam, a parent of a Class 12 student from ITL Public School, said, “There are two pre-board exams, one in November and one in mid-December. However, now we do not know when the first one will end, which will push back the second pre-board as well. We are apprehensive that this might affect time for preparation.”
Anil Kumar, principal of Delhi Public School, RK Puram, said that all schools are equipped to efficiently switch to online mode. “Ever since the global pandemic hit, online mode has become a part of our reality and it should not be a constraint for schools to continue with the syllabus,” Kumar said.