Grade 12, Indian School Certificate curriculum (ISC) students, from the U.A.E. raised concerns after they heard of their board exams being postponed due to rising Covid-19 cases in India.
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Source: Our World in Data
On 16 April 2021, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) announced that grade 12 CISCE board exams, which were to be held in May, would be delayed.
They added that a decision on whether the exam would happen would be taken on June 1.
18-year-old Samiksha Das, a U.A.E. based ISC student, said: “When I heard the news, I felt immediately exhausted; mentally and physically.
“I felt tired and scared about how I could keep myself focused for the next two months of uncertainty, working towards something that may not even happen.
“I had a literature mock exam on Sunday but after the announcement, I couldn’t get myself to study a thing.”
Students have reported feeling “burnt-out” and “confused” over the CISCE’s latest decision.
Another ISC student from U.A.E. Maha Sweetha Shanmugam, 17, said: “These exams have become such a burden because they had to occur in March and CISCE kept us in the dark for so long. They are very irresponsive to our parents’ emails too.
“We’re at a point where we’ve all lost our motivation and are studying aimlessly.”
“It’s so frustrating. We just want the exams to be cancelled because we’ve been studying too long, and they have plenty of internals to obtain our marks.
“It’s not fair that this batch had to go through hell and back for both university and school life.”
Students were worried about their University applications but were reassured by schools that their preliminary or predicted scores would be used to assess their marks if case the board exams weren’t conducted.
Diya Bansal, 18 doing the ISC curriculum in U.A.E., said: “The school is doing their best to ensure that no one is at a loss here.”
“I definitely think the postponement has given all of us a break in some sense, but there are of course people who still feel very drained from the whole ordeal.
“Although the students get a shortened summer break, personally, I was glad that they got postponed.
“Now I can take some time to recuperate from the whole intense preparation and fuel my energy for when I have to prepare next.”