Ramesh Pokhriyal says 2021 board exams to be conducted after February

NEW DELHI: Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ held a live webinar on Twitter today. In the webinar, he announced that no board exam will be held in January and February 2021.

The minister said, “Exams will be held after February 2021 whenever the situation is favourable. We will decide and announce the exam dates soon.”

Addressing a student’s query regarding the possibility of conducting an online exam, the minister said, “online exams are not possible for now as most of the CBSE schools are situated in rural areas where not all students can access mobile phones, laptops or any other digital devices”.

Therefore, exams will be conducted in offline mode. “We will take a call on how these exams can be conducted,” he added.

In the webinar, he appreciated teachers for holding online classes and handling students during COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, he said many countries closed their schools for a year, but Indian teachers supported well to conduct online classes and to keep the academic year going.

Talking about entrance exam syllabus, he told that some boards have reduced their syllabus by 30% while some have not. So there can be a gap among students. So we introduced a new pattern. Now, there will be a total of 90 questions and students will have to answer 75 questions. Till last year, JEE Main exam was held twice a year, but now, this exam will be held four times a year (February, March, April and May). So, students can appear as per their own convenience.

The minister also said that his ministry has introduced a vocational stream from Class 6 under the New Education Policy (NEP), that would empower a student by providing them with practical knowledge of industries. He added that “India will become the first country to introduce artificial intelligence' in the school curriculum.”

Talking about the teacher training programme, he said that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) trained around 4.8 lakh teachers in April 2020.

Answering a teacher’s question regarding students who are unable to attend online classes due to lack of mobiles, internet and digital mediums, the minister said that there are 32 Swayam Prabha’s channels which are available on various TV network platforms. Apart from this, students can attend radio classes as well.

Further, he assured to solve the digital gap soon. However, till then, the ministry is trying to reach students through TV and radio classes.

Also read:

• Education Minister live webinar updates

• AYUSH NEET 2020 counselling: Round 2 registration begins at aaccc.gov.in

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