Meeting between several high-profile ministers of the Narendra Modi government to decide on conducting class 12 board exams is over. Reports suggest that the meeting is over without any consensus. The government had proposed two options – one to hold exams for only limited subjects and two to hold exams for all subjects but reduce the time for each exam from 3 hours to 1.5 hours and change questions to MCQ and short questions type only. States, however, have demanded a third option.
Some states including Tamil Nadu said that they will hold a written exam as per either of the two options as and when the situation is conducive, many other states including Maharashtra and Delhi are against holding exams at all and want students to be assessed based on internal assessment. Some states also demand to give students options of appearing for exams at a later stage and declaring it a zero exam year. There is a lack of consensus among states but a decision from the center is expected soon.
The national-level meeting also discussed holding entrance exams including JEE Main, JEE Advanced, and NEET among others. Considering students appearing for these exams are 17-18 years of age, there is a demand for getting these students vaccinated before holding exams. While countries like the USA have started vaccinated their children, India is yet to formalize a policy on vaccination.