During these testing times with having Covid-19 around, the students of NIOS face another problem along with it. With the NIOS board having cancelled the board exams for the students with special needs of batch 2019-2020, the students and parents of the students without special needs of the same batch face similar problems.

Recently, the NIOS board has released a statement stating that the oncoming exams which are to be held from the 17th of July 2020 are postponed until further notice. Students are going through a phase of trauma of having their exams postponed every once in a while. It also affects their mental health, which leads to depression and other mental ailments, and a wave of pressure. Not only the students, but their parents also face a great difficulty with having the exams postponed. Constant worry of when their children will write their exams and get their results is a massive inconvenience. A further inconvenience is when their children will get into colleges. By the time the exams get over, all the colleges (national and international) will close their intake of candidates. Moreover, the NIOS students will miss an entire year of education in colleges, which is very, very precious.

The NIOS board needs to understand that all lives are equally important and that the students without special needs are equally vulnerable to the virus, as well. A student’s life is more important than having to write their exams.

As students of NIOS, we have been given the privileges of either, attending school and learning the subjects or staying at home and learning them. Along with them come into play the TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments).

So, we humbly request that the board takes into consideration for awarding final scores/grades the scholastic and co-scholastic bases, which may include TMA scores, attendance of the students and their positive interaction in the classrooms. It may also be supplemented, if needed, with custom-made online examinations for arriving at the students’ performance criteria. Or, alternatively, devising the project works or assessments to determine the scores, could be considered.

Thus keeping the well-being of the students’ community, we respectfully place our humble request to the expert members of the NIOS board to kindly device a suitable method to handle the current pandemic situation and enable the students to go through the phase without anymore hurdles.