COVID- "Education Cannot Be More Important Than Lives" : Class X Student Moves Bombay High Court Praying To Not Change State's Decision To Cancel Exams

A class Xth student from Pune has moved the Bombay High Court urging the Court to not change the decision of cancellation of examination made by State's SSC Board.

An intervention application has been filed by applicant Rishan Asim Sarode seeking directions to the Board to formulate a process of assessment of the students without conducting examination with a specific timeline of 7 days from the date of order.

Further, the applicant has urged the court to take opinion of mental health care workers like child psychologist and psychiatrist to understand how changing of decisions will effect mental heath of children.

"This year has to be considered as an exceptional year because of the pandemic situation. While Education is important, it cannot be more important than the lives of children, teachers, other staff, and parents of children who will venture out to appear for exams" the application reads.

The application has been filed for intervention in the PIL challenging the State Government's decision to cancel the SSC exams, which were scheduled for March 2021 pending before the High Court. The applicant has stated that the petitioner, a 61 years old adult is pleading to change the State's decision without consideration what the children are going through mentally and emotionally with such uncertainties, and child rights perspective is important in such cases.

The present application , filed by Advocates Asim Sarode and Ajinkya Udane has sought to bring to court's attention to the 'emotional pressures, psychological effects' the students are going through because of the constant uncertainty in decision making by the State SSC Board.

The applicant has argued that by insisting on conducting exams, the lives of the children is being put in danger, as due to various strains of virus coming up it is still not safe to say that children will not be effected, and according to experts the third strain is likely to impact children.

Referring to the difference between assessment required for class 12th and 10th, the applicant has stated that some form of assessment becomes necessary for class 12th students as 12th leads to choosing of a professional course, which is not the case with 10th standard, where they only choose streams.

The Applicant has stated that the boards are Important in shaping students lives but after the decision of cancellation of exams the students and parents have relaxed, which will make going back to study mode mentally stressful of students.

The applicant has argued that it will be unfair to asses the students from rural areas, from socially and economically backward classes who did not have access to online classes, by conducting Board exams.

Pointing out the uncertainty that still exists regarding the pandemic, the applicant has argued that it would be wrong to say that the students were not willing to give exams, as schools that had access to online classes engaged students in studies and periodically assessed them.

According to the applicant, considering that around 30 lakh students will be appearing in exams for 10th and 12th, by cancelling 10th exams the risk for 16 lakh students and 32 lakh parents will be reduced.

It may be noted that the present application has been filed after the Bombay High Court on May 20th came down heavily on the Maharashtra Government for its decision to cancel the Secondary School Certificate Examination for Class X.

"In the name of pandemic, we can't spoil career and future of our children. The Framers of education policy should know that in the state. This isn't acceptable at all" a division bench of Justices SJ Khathawalla and SP Tavade had orally said.