Priyanka Gandhi writes to Ramesh Pokhriyal, expresses concern over CBSE exams amid COVID

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday wrote a letter to Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank reiterating her concerns over CBSE board's decision of conducting board exams in May despite the alarming surge of COVID-19 infections in the country. The Congress General Secretary took to Twitter to post the letter written to the Education Minister. In her letter, Vadra said, "Lakhs of children and parents from all over India have been expressing their fears and apprehensions about assembling at the exam centers to sit for the exams in the middle of the second wave of COVID-19" while adding, "These apprehensions are not unreasonable. They are well founded. It will be practically impossible to ensure safety of students at large and crowded exam centers."

Priyanka Vadra on Friday too said it was irresponsible to force students to appear for Board examinations and demanded that the exams be either cancelled or rescheduled in view of the current COVID-19 situation.

"It is downright irresponsible of boards like the CBSE to force students to sit for exams under the prevailing circumstances. Board exams should either be cancelled, rescheduled or arranged in a manner that does not require the physical presence of children at crowded exam centres," she had said on Twitter.

CBSE has scheduled to begin the class 10th and 12th board exams from May 4. According to the revised date sheet for CBSE board exams 2021, the Class 10 exams would be held between May 4 and June 7 and those for Class 12 would be held between May 4 and June 15. Millions of students are registered to appear for the board exams. However, many students and parents have tweeted to request the education ministry to either conduct the board exams online or postpone the exams for a month or two, considering the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases.

To register their protest against the CBSE exams amid the pandemic, people took to Twitter to trend #cancelboards2021 in order to bring the attention of the authorities to their demands. There have been demands from students for holding online examinations and over one lakh students have already signed a petition to the CBSE in this regard.

Meanwhile, the CBSE had issued a statement informing that they've made adequate arrangements to ensure the safety of students. CBSE officials had said as per COVID guidelines exam centres across the country have been increased by 40-50 per cent to ensure social distancing among students.