Amid the swirling speculations on the state of tenth-grade board exams in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has, on Tuesday, said that the government has canceled the board exams for tenth-grade students completely and the students would be promoted to the next level based on the internal evaluation marks obtained by them.

In his televised address that lasted not more than five minutes, the Chief Minister said that the board exams for tenth-grade students for the current year stand canceled owing to the rapid spread of the Coronavirus pandemic. The students would be promoted based on the internal assessment. According to the Chief Minister, 80% of marks would be provided for the students based on the marks they obtained in their quarterly and half-yearly examinations.

Students of classes 10th and 11th to be promoted on the basis of quarterly and half-yearly exam results as well as their attendance; their exams stand cancelled. Decision regarding class 12th exams will be taken in coming days: Tamil Nadu CM Edappadi K Palaniswami (file pic) pic.twitter.com/6Y3xgvNp7p

— ANI (@ANI) June 9, 2020

The rest of 20% marks would be based on the attendance shown by the students. All the students would be announced ameliorated in tenth-grade and their marks would be defined on these parameters. The Chief Minister stated that the decision of canceling the board exams has been taken by the government based on the interest of the lives of the students as the COVID-19 cases are peaking in the state. 

The Chief Minister further stated that the pending exams for the eleventh-grade students have also been canceled and the date for a pending exam for the 12th-grade students would be announced later. The announcement has become a crucial one as the state government has been criticized and demanded by the opposition parties and various stakeholders to consider the lives of the students before hurrying to conduct the exams.

Tamil Nadu has become one of the early states in India to cancel the board exams for the students by citing the outbreak. On Monday, DMK President Stalin has urged the state to cancel the exams like how the Telangana government has done in its state. The Madras High court has also taken a tough stance against the state government on the necessity of conducting the exams by pushing the lives of over 9 lakh students into risk. 

The High court has asked the government to conduct the exams in the second week of July and to defer its current schedule. The government has earlier said that the cases would peak high in July-October and claimed that it would be the appropriate time to conduct the exams.

However, amid the demands and response from the High court, the state government has now canceled the exams completely for the tenth-grade students, which has answered the questions raised by the stakeholders and dotted up the speculations. Earlier, the government has announced the schedule to conduct the board exams for tenth-grade students from June 15 to June 25.

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