CBSE board exams to continue from Monday

nNEW DELHI: After holding meetings with their staff and management committees on Saturday, all schools in north-east Delhi concluded that the situation in their neighbourhoods is “too tense” to conduct the annual examinations.

Following this, while the Delhi government postponed internal examinations in all schools of north-east Delhi till March 7, the CBSE announced that it would go ahead and conduct the class 10 and 12 boards exams in the area from Monday onwards.

The board had previously deferred the class 10 and 12 exams thrice in north-east Delhi and parts of east Delhi over the last week, due to the prevailing conditions.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) spokesperson Rama Sharma said, “CBSE class 10 and 12 exams will be held as scheduled from March 2 onwards in northeastern parts of Delhi as well. The board had filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, which directed the Delhi Police and the Delhi government to ensure the safety of students and render all help to conduct exams in these areas.”

Even as the Delhi government on Saturday placed its request with the Delhi Police for the deployment of “adequate security” in and around CBSE examination centres in northeast Delhi to ensure the safety and security of students and the teachers, residents said they were apprehensive of sending their children for the exams.

Irfana, 35, a resident of Kardampuri, said she might avoid sending her son, a class 12 student, to take the exam on Tuesday. “My son’s examination centre is three kilometres away from our house in Jafrabad — the same place where the violence began. How can I send my only son there when even adults are not daring to go there?” she said.

At Irfana’s son’s examination centre in Jafrabad — Zeenat Mahal Senior Secondary School — officials said the students were writing exams when riots broke out just outside their campus last Monday.

Sameena Begum, a member of the School Management Committee (SMC), said she has been receiving calls from parents with requests to postpone the exams.

“The students witnessed the stone-pelting by rioters, and tear gas shells being fired at them by the police. They are still in trauma. We are sure the attendance in the board exams scheduled on Monday and Tuesday will be very thin,” she said.

During SMC meetings in schools across north-east Delhi, committee members brought up the parents’ apprehensions. Shankar Singh, a member of the SMC in Mustafabad School said, “Residents of the riot-hit localities will take at least 10-15 days to come out of the shock, and it will take years to overcome the fear and grief. The families of many of our students have fled to their native villages. We do not know if these children will appear in the exams next week.”

Officials in the schools that were burnt in the riots have also made arrangements to ensure all students appear in the board exams. Neetu Chaudhary, cashier of Arun Modern Public School in Brijpuri — which was burnt and vandalised on Tuesday — said that admit cards of at least seven of their board students were also destroyed in the violence.

“We have already had a word with the CBSE. We will reach our students’ examination centres well before the scheduled exam timing and facilitate their entry into the centres. We just hope all of them turn up for the exam,” she said.