In view of the ongoing crisis of COVID-19 across the country, India is experiencing  the major catastrophes of the second wave of the deadly pandemic. According to the official Government statistics, our country is recording more than 3 lakh new COVID-19 positive cases every day.

Through this petition I call upon the concerned government authorities to take immediate steps towards the cancellation of the offline class 12 board examinations in the view of this ongoing crisis.

Last year on June 25, 2020, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) notified the Hon. Supreme Court that the previous year board examinations for classes X and XII were to be canceled in the view of the pandemic. Last year, on June 25, 2020, India recorded 18,205 new COVID-19 positive cases. Today the number of new COVID-19 positive cases recorded each day is above 3 lakhs. The numbers are 16 times more than last year, as the situation has deteriorated in the second wave. This illustrates the grave situation of the pandemic at this moment of time in the country. If last year’s situation wasn’t good enough for conducting the examinations, then this year the situation is 16 times worse than last year.

It has been also identified that in this second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, the younger generation is more severely affected compared to the first wave. Moreover the majority of the students appearing for this year’s class 12 board examinations haven’t yet been vaccinated. Thus it becomes a serious health concern for students’ safety.

CBSE has previously notified the students about the postponement of the examinations scheduled to begin from May, till June 1st, 2021. Further postponement will cause delay in the declaration of results which will cause serious difficulties in selecting a favorable university/college admissions. The delay has already caused problems for students who were seeking to study abroad, further delay will increase the problems and limit students’ career options. Therefore it is my humble request to not delay the examinations any further and for the cancellation of the offline examinations at the earliest and dvising an alternative method for evaluating students.

With the above mentioned arguments, I strongly urge the government authorities to take immediate steps toward cancellation of the offline examinations and release an alternative unbiased marking scheme which will be able to evaluate students based on their merits.

Though this petition is in regards to the CBSE board examinations but since the situation is same all over the country, this petition also requests other private and state government boards to cancel the class 12 board examinations as well.