As teachers prepare to take revision exams to senior students in state board schools from January 19, they are still waiting for clarity on the final schedule this year.
After canceling the quarterly and half yearly exams, the school education department announced two rounds of revision exams in January and March for class X and XII.
“The first round of the exam will consist of the parts that we completed by the end of December. The reduction in syllabus and six working days a week helped most of the schools to complete the part on time,” said A Ramu, state president, directly recruited postgraduate teachers’ association. But students still need a lot of motivation to take the exam seriously. “We are trying to help them prepare better by giving them practice questions and clearing their doubts, but some have not taken it seriously yet,” he said.
The schools are working only for class X, XI and XII to prepare students for the board exams later this year. A week ago, School Education Minister Ambil Mahesh Poyyamozhi had said that public examinations would be conducted this year.
A government school science teacher said that in the absence of schedule for board exams, many students had not started serious preparation yet. “Despite the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the state, we are hoping that individual classes for senior students are not cancelled. Especially for government school students, we cannot have online classes effectively,” he said.
Individual classes for senior students started only from September last year and many teachers are hopeful that classes will continue with adequate safety measures. With classes I to IX being in online mode, the extra space to ensure physical distancing has come as a boon in many schools, which have a large number of senior classes.
“While we expect individual classes to continue, the state government should announce the public examination schedule at least three months in advance. We understand that due to the pandemic, there may be last minute changes, but having a schedule will help teachers plan classes and revision sessions for students who were affected due to the closure of schools last year,” said SN Janardhan, State President, Tamil Nadu said Vocational Teacher Kazhagam.
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