PUNE: Students and teachers of classes X and XII are going through a lot of stress with the closure of schools owing to the renewed surge in Covid-19 cases across the state.
In normal times, January would have been the month when students were made to solve question banks, appear for prelims or mock tests and the results were analysed to solve the remaining doubts. This year, schools are not being able to do any of these. The question bank available is also the same as uploaded by SCERT last year.
While in 2021, board examinations were cancelled and students were given marks based on a formula of internal assessment, this year the state board has clarified that examinations will be conducted offline. Though schools are doing their best to ensure that students solve as many mock tests online as possible and also clear doubts on call, teachers feel more needs to be done.
Mahendra Ganpule, the spokesperson for Maharashtra School Headmasters’ Forum, said notices to close down schools did mention that they can conduct board-related activities for classes X and XII. This, however, has created confusion because practicals start after February 15, which means there are no board-related activities before that.
“In the actual sense, they should have written all educational activities that can be conducted for classes X and XII so that students could have been called for preliminary exams, practicals among others. It is a common mentality of most of the students to start studying for the boards in the last three months. The marks obtained in prelims generally jolt them into action and teachers also understand the problem areas for each kid so that they can focus there. But these are not possible now because of the closure of schools,” said Ganpule.
Bhagwan Pandekar, a senior teacher with Laxmanrao Apte Prashala, said while some schools are conducting the prelims online, they are not that effective, as they would have been if they would have been conducted offline.
“Students need to appear for the prelims offline because then we know at what stage, for example in mathematics, are they facing problems and tell them how to get past that stage. Very few students ask questions online and even when they do, we try to explain it to them. But we do not know whether they have actually understood or not. But in a classroom, we can have one look at the kid and understand how much he or she has understood the explanation. Missing out on the January and February schedule would be a great loss for students, especially the ones who are average or below average in academics,” said Pandekar.
A Class X student said schools should have remained open because without the mock tests and their results, there is hardly any competition or motivation to do better than the remaining students. “Asking doubts in an online class feels weird. Plus asking the same question again is also weird. Hence offline classes would have been a better option,” said the student.
Ayushka Gahine, another Class X student, said her school is yet to finish a chapter or two in some subjects and they are doing it online.
“It would have been good if the schools would have been allowed to remain open for full time at least for the students appearing for their boards. It would have given schools enough time to complete the syllabus, take mock tests and also help us overcome the mistakes,” said Gahine.
