It's online for some and offline for others in Jalandhar schools

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 22

With the ongoing academic session in the schools coming to an end and final examinations set to start soon, the authorities have a mixed take regarding the mode for conducting the examination.

 While some schools have already started taking online examination, others have announced that they would be taking examination only in offline mode. There are yet others who have decided to go as per the parents’ will giving options of both online as well as offline examination to students.

 Since the government has so far made vaccination available only for students aged 15 years and above, most students covered in this age group are of Classes IX onwards. The school authorities which are taking online examination or giving an option to choose between the two modes are a bit wary of the situation, despite the numbers of Covid cases falling each day.

 St Joseph’s Convent School, Jalandhar is already conducting online examination for its students. The exams are expected to get over by the end of this week. Since it is an ICSE school, its academic calendar remains a little advanced. Even before the government had announced opening of schools for Classes VI onwards, the school had already given out the datesheet for online examination and hence it decided to go on with an already announced schedule.

 Police DAV Public School, Jalandhar on the other hand, has plans to take examination only in the offline mode. “All our classes got started in offline mode recently. We are getting a very good attendance of the students in almost all classes, except in junior section. Our students of classes IX and XI are already appearing for offline examination. We have been telling all parents of students of other classes also to send their children to school as we will be taking their offline examination from February 28 onwards”, said Principal Rashmi Vij.

 On the other hand, the school authorities, which have been giving an option of only offline examination, are of the opinion that a proper reality check of the students’ level of understanding and assessment can be made only if they take offline examination. Despite giving the students a good lesson to be truthful to themselves and not open their books at the time of online examination, copying has been widely rampant and students have forgotten how to learn and prepare for the examination.

 Delhi Public School, Jalandhar Principal Ritu Kaul said that she had announced that the school would be taking offline examination only from February 28 onwards. “Only those parents who have a very genuine problem of not being able to send their child to school for examination would be given an exception. Till the time the examinations start, we have also started ‘Bridge the gap’ programme for our students. Our teachers are once again revising all basic concepts of each subject with the children so that they are able to understand things better in the physical classroom”, she said.

 The authorities of Innocent Hearts School, Jalandhar, however, maintained that despite opening of the school, a large number of parents were still not ready to send their wards. Principal Rajiv Paliwal said, “The parents are saying that since it is the end of the session, they would now be sending their children to the school from the new session. They are also hopeful that vaccination for 12-14 year-old children, too, might get started by then. Hence, we have sent consent forms to the parents and we expect that only 30-40 per cent of the parents would opt for offline examination, with the rest preferring online mode only”.

Thus, the opening of schools at the fag end of the session has given a wide berth to the schools as well as students regarding the conduct of exams and the teachers, students and parents are all hoping for things to get back to normal in the new session in 2022 now.