Who are patrachar students? Why do they need to write CBSE Class 12 exams during the pandemic?
On June 1, a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided to cancel the CBSE's Class XII examinations, owing to the high number of COVID cases in the country. Lakhs of students breathed a sigh of relief. This included Neha*. She is a student of Delhi's Patrachar Vidyalaya, and she was preparing to go to Paris to study business management and culinary skills. However, the order hadn't mentioned anything about the private, patrachar and repeater students. The confusion was cleared on June 17, when the CBSE had submitted its evaluation format to the Supreme Court. While the court had accepted the evaluation scheme, it had asked the board to conduct examinations for private, patrachar and repeater students and students who want to improve their grades, between August 15 and September 15, if the situation is conducive. The judgment had created a lot of hue and cry and now, a review petition has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking cancellation of these exams. For those who do not know, Patrachar is a system by the CBSE, where students do not have to fulfill the criteria of maintaining 75 per cent attendance. Mostly, students who prepare for competitive examinations opt for this. "The minute the announcement was made, my father had paid my fee, which amounted to Rs 12 lakh. I was all set to go to Paris. My classes were to begin on September 20," she says. She is not alone. "This has left me and many others in a fix. Thinking that our exams are cancelled, I had given up preparing for the examinations and started planning for my bachelor's degree," says Neha. But that's not the only issue. "To get the France student visa, I need to present my Class XII certificate. Now, with the exams being held between August 15 and September 15, if the situation gets better, I won't get my results before September 20. This will result in me losing an academic year and a large sum of money," says this 18-year-old, helplessly. Neha believes so. "There is not much difference between us and regular students. We too wrote the last semester examinations offline, at our school. They can easily grade us based on our past performance," she says.