TN students’ board exam show alarms teachers

CHENNAI: The performance of students during the board exams this year, especially those from government and aided schools, has been very poor. The exams for classes 10-12 were conducted after two years due to the pandemic situation.

Teachers evaluating answer sheets said that many students submitted plain answer sheets while others submitted papers with all answers wrong. As teachers fear the overall percentage of results falling drastically, a senior official from the School Education Department, on condition of anonymity, told DT Next that as per reports from teachers who evaluated answer scripts, performance of many board exam students from classes 10-12 in State-run schools was below-average. “We have asked the evaluators to be liberal in marking those who attempted the questions and may have made smaller mistakes,” he added.

“Class 10 government school students who didn’t have annual exams for the last two years and could hardly study well this year were struggling in Class 12 due to lack of knowledge,” a senior teacher in Vellore government school said. “Performances were poor since most government schools could not cover all syllabus portions on time even though it was truncated by almost half. Moreover, many students were absent for classes which started in September 2021,” the teacher added.

Another teacher from Tiruvarur district said many students kept hoping that the government would announce all pass. “While correcting answer sheets, especially for Class 10 students, we noticed they couldn’t even attempt the graphs in Mathematics, something that is not very difficult. How can we make the student pass if he got only five marks. Others have submitted plain answer sheets,” he said.

Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Association president PK Ilamaran appealed to the authorities that since the overall pass percentage is important, evaluation should be liberal considering the past pandemic situation since students from government and aided schools could not access online classes as compared to private institutions. “Full marks should be given at least if the students have attempted the questions in the right manner,” he added.

Admitting the poor performance of the students, Tamizhaga Tamil Aasiriar Sangam, joint secretary R Dhandapani expressed hope that their performance will improve in the coming academic year provided the schools opened as per schedule.

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