New Delhi, June 6 Before the class 12 Board exams were cancelled, the issue was widely discussed in the Supreme Court on the plea filed by a young lawyer Mamta Sharma, who challenged the conduct of the exams in the top court. She appeared several times on behalf of the students, but did not charge a rupee as fee.
Thirty-three-year-old advocate Mamta Sharma told that initially only a few students studying in Class 12 approached her. However, with the passage of time, more and more students got in touch with her through social media platforms like Twitter, Google etc. Later more than 40,000 students came in contact with her during the campaign.
Lakhs of class 12 students were quite active on social media, running an online campaign to demand cancellation of the exams.
Advocate Mamta Sharma formed a special group of 7,224 parents to move ahead on the issue. According to her, she found it strange that when the class 10 board examinations can be cancelled, then on what basis can class 12 students be asked to take the examinations amid the raging pandemic.
Mamta Sharma said the first appeal was filed in the Supreme Court on May 3. Following which a petition was filed again on May 5. Despite the spread of Covid-19 infection in Delhi, she herself went to the Supreme Court and inquired about her petition in the registry.
A group of 7,224 parents formed by this young lawyer through social networking sites discussed with each other on Twitter, Google Call, video conferencing etc. Afterwards, at the behest of their lawyer, this group also reached the Supreme Court with all the documents and submitted their petition in the registry. The young lawyer said that her petition was accepted by the court on May 27 and the hearing started on May 28.
Mamta Sharma said she was also not in favour of conducting the exams with objective type questions for class 12 students, as giving such a test is a separate process and requires different kind of practice.
Meanwhile, in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 1, a decision was taken to cancel the class 12 examinations. According to Mamta, now she and her team of parents and students are waiting for the criteria to be devised to evaluate the students.
As many as 14,30,247 students were due to appear for the CBSE's class 12 board examination this year.
Vishnu Karthik, CEO, The Heritage Schools, said the challenge now before the CBSE is to establish an alternative standard of evaluation for class 12. Delays or rumours about the new grading system will create confusion and tension among the students.
It would be imperative to give clear instructions to Indian universities to amend the admission criteria so that the merit and fairness of the students is not compromised.
Shishir Jaipuria, Chairman, Jaipuria Group of Educational Institutions, said it is very important to set standards for evaluation of students. It has to be kept in mind that many children work whole-heartedly till the last stage of preparation and hence they should be given due benefits.
Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has constituted a 12-member committee which will decide the basis of evaluation for declaring the result of class 12 students.
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