No rush to scrap Class X boards: PM

Updated on: Monday, November 16, 2009

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has warned against any rush to scrap the class X board exam in what official sources described as an effort to calm the anxiety in certain quarters that doing away with the exam would leave students ill-equipped for future challenges.

“We are still debating this issue. This is an experiment. We should not take a decision in haste,” Singh said in an interaction with school children to mark the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.

This came in response to a question by a student who asked whether children are not being made weak by the decision to do away with the 10th board examination. “You are shielding them from difficulties,” a student said.

In September, the HRD ministry had announced that the compulsory CBSE class X board exam will become optional from the next academic year (2010-11) while a grading system will be in place from the current year.

The move was seen as an endorsement of the widespread view that the class X exams were an unnecessary burden on students since what really mattered was the class XII boards.

HRD ministry sources refused to see the PM’s remarks as a repudiation of their decision to make the class X boards optional in CBSE schools. They pointed out that the ministry itself was treading cautiously and had left it for students that too in only CBSE-affiliated schools to take the call on the exams.

“In that sense it is an experiment. The PM is right. The decision of the state boards to emulate CBSE will depend on the success of the new system that will start only in 2011. The state boards have also said they will see how the CBSE experiment works,” one official said.

Asked as to why education was getting costlier by the day, Singh said this was so only in private schools. In government schools, every effort was being made to ensure that education did not become a privilege for the rich alone.

No rush to scrap Class X boards: PM

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