'30:30:40' A Boon or a Nightmare?

 With the onset of the deadly and more dangerous second wave of Corona Virus , the government decided to call off the Boards examination of tenth first and later  of twelfth too relieving lakhs of student tied down by the bondage and uncertainty of the examinations getting conducted or not.

The announcement of cancellation of the boards examination raised a huge question 

'How will the students get evaluated and on what basis?'

The Central Board of Secondary Education came up with the formula of 30:30:40 which was later passed by the Supreme Court of India. 30:30:40 states that the students will be evaluated on the basis of their 10th , 11th and 12th combined ; 30% of the marks scored in 10th Std , 30% of the marks scored in 11th Std and 40% of the marks scored in pre boards of 12th Std. On paper this may look fair and the best way possible to evaluate as students are evaluated on their performance of 10th,11th,12th but is it really so? 

It's a well known fact that the jump from 10th to 11th is quite huge , bigger jump than 12th to college. Many students struggle in 11th , a majority  don't take it seriously , some are busy preparing for entrance and take school exams for granted and the biggest twist is that due to pandemic some might have answered 11th finals online while others might've not even answered at all. As of examinations conducted during the duration of 12th Std it's highly likely that most of the exams were answered online by the students and I don't think I need to say that online exams are as good as open book examination. As for the students who might have answered 12th exams offline there are students who take prelims seriously and score well , there are also students who score mediocre and prepare post prelims and score well in boards and this according to me is the most common category of students and then there are some who take prelims as a joke altogether. The question is how transparent and fair is this formula in practicality? There might be students who score mediocre marks but due to online examinations might've scored well and got better marks than they would've in boards examination and there are also students who due to online classes and offline exams performed below their potential and would end up getting lesser marks than they would've in boards examination which would be very detrimental to their future. To bear in mind there are certain schools who would want their school result to be really good and hence would send biased marks in favour of students to the Board and most of the mediocre students end up recieving marks they could've only dreamt of. As a matter of fact students who didn't even know the portion for exams might well end up getting 80-85%.

Yes there is an option to answer the boards examination shall the student decide to do so but who would? When would it be conducted ? When would the marks arrive? It would already be too late and the admissions in colleges in India and abroad would've ended by then which would mean they have to take an academic year drop just to answer the Boards examination.

On paper this may look like the ideal and perfect solution to all the chaos created due to calling off Boards examination but in reality it has many holes in it which may lead to unfair evaluation of the students marks.

Frankly their wouldn't and isn't any solution which can satisfy everyone after all everything good isn't all good and everything bad isn't all bad ; some would argue that something is better than nothing whereas some would argue that it does more harm than good. NEET and JEE aspirants won't be too bothered with the cancellation of boards as for them their prime focus is the entrance exam and board exams are just a formality for them. As for students not appearing for entrance and choosing other stream , it would be difficult for them to get admission into colleges. Colleges shall and may come with their own entrance exam to deem a candidate worthy or not to be a student of their esteemed institution. 

The question remains to be seen after the pandemic and cancellations of boards how credible board marks will remain? 

For whom shall this turn out to be a boon and for whom shall it turn out to be a nightmare.