Tamil Nadu cancels Class 10th board examination, all students to get promoted

Chennai : Students of Class 10th in Tamil Nadu can now take a sigh of relief as the government has decided to cancel the board examination and promote all the candidates to the next class.

Making the announcement at the Secretariat on Tuesday, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that all the students who were in line to write the exams from June 15 will be promoted to class 11.

CM also mentioned that 80% of the marks will be given to the students on the basis of their performance in Half Yearly and quarterly examinations; while 20% marks will be given on the basis of the attendance.

The decision of the government has come against the backdrop of the state postponing the public exams thrice.

The Class 10 exams were first scheduled between March 27 and April 13. However, since the nationwide lockdown was announced by the Central government on March 24, the exams were postponed. The School Education Minister later announced that the exams would be conducted between June 1 and June 15. Facing flak, the government yet again postponed the exams to June 15 and June 25.

Several people filed their petitions in the court against the government's decision to rescheduling examinations in close intervals. "What is the hurry of conducting examination?" Court asked the government.

In response to Madras High Court’s question, the state had reasoned that it expected the COVID-19 situation to aggravate in the coming months and hence the exams should be held as planned before the situation became even more difficult.