Vaccinate students before exams: Sisodia
New Delhi: The Delhi government on Sunday put its foot down in a meeting between the states and the Centre on holding the CBSE 12th board examinations, taking a firm stand that the Centre should not even be considering holding any kind of examination until students and teachers are protected by Covid vaccines, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia said after the meeting.
The education minister, who is also Delhi's nodal minister Covid-19, said that it would be irresponsible to go ahead with the examination especially at a time when the world is preparing for the third wave of the pandemic. "Conducting Board Exams in these unprecedented times would be a big mistake on behalf of the Central government. It would render our children and teachers even more vulnerable," Sisodia said.
At a time the country is reporting 2.5 lakh daily infections, students, parents and teachers will be in no mental state to be preparing for any kind of examinations. "Families across the nation have suffered immense pain and trauma due to COVID-19," he said, adding the only condition under which the examinations should be considered is that students and teachers are vaccinated.
"The Central government should completely cancel Board Exams if vaccination is not possible," he said, adding it was time the Centre took a decision and spare the student and teacher communities any further anxiety.
Dy CM Sisodia said, "In such a time of crisis, the Central government should speak with Pfizer, as it has already developed vaccines for 12+ children, and acquire these vaccines for the 1.4 crore students who are currently studying in 12th grade. Only after procuring vaccines and vaccinating all students should the Centre think about conducting any kind of examination."
The Centre should speak to health experts about vaccinating students in the 12th grade as 95 per cent of them were already 17.5-years-old. "The Delhi government will vaccinate all its 12th grade students in two days of the vaccines are made available by the Centre," Sisodia said.
He added, "The consensus of the entire education community is that conducting exams is important but not by putting our students and teachers at risk. As a guardian of the State, Delhi Government is taking a stand to keep the safety and security of our students as the first and most important priority. Until we are unable to vaccinate our students, we should not even think of administering the 12th Board Exams."
At the meeting called by the Union Ministry of Education, "Two options were discussed at the meeting. The first was conducting the exams in the present format for the major subjects and marking for the rest of the subjects on the basis of the performance in these papers.
"The second was having the exams in the students' home schools, reducing the duration and changing the exam pattern. The Delhi government is not in favour of these options. We cannot play with the safety of students just to fulfil our stubborn wishes," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader told a press conference.
The meeting was chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar also attended the meeting, besides the education ministers and secretaries of various states and Union territories.
The CBSE had, on April 14, announced the cancellation of the Class 10 exams and postponed the Class 12 exams in view of a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases.
