Haryana cancels Class 12 board exams amid COVID-19

Gurugram: The Haryana government has decided to cancel the Class 12 exams conducted by the state board, Education Minister Kanwar Pal said on Tuesday.

The decision came shortly after the central government announced cancelling the CBSE Class 12 board exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We have also decided to cancel the Class 12 board exams in the state which were to be conducted by the Haryana Board of School Education," Pal told PTI over phone.

"We are going with the decision taken by the Centre and have decided to cancel the board exams," he said.

The state Board will take steps to compile the results of Class 12 students and modalities for this will be worked out soon, he added.

The decision to cancel the CBSE exams was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Government of India has decided to cancel the Class XII CBSE Board Exams. After extensive consultations, we have taken a decision that is student-friendly, one that safeguards the health as well as future of our youth," the prime minister tweeted after the meeting.

Anxiety among students, parents and teachers must be put to an end, and students should not be forced to appear for exams in such a stressful situation, a government statement quoted the prime minister as saying.

Earlier on April 15, the Haryana government had cancelled the Class 10 board exams which were to be conducted by the state board. It had then decided to postpone the exams of Class 12.

The state board exams were earlier scheduled to start in April and continue till mid-May before these were cancelled for Class 10 and postponed for Class 12.

Haryana saw a sharp increase in coronavirus cases over the past few weeks. However, infections have been on the decline in the last few days.

To contain the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Haryana, the state government had initially imposed a lockdown on May 3 for a week till May 10, which was later extended four times and is currently enforced till June 7.