Legal Indecisiveness Persists Over Karnataka Board Exams For Classes 5, 8, 9 and 11
Supreme Court’s order is the 3rd judicial order in a month over the Karnataka government”s decision to conduct board exams for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 (PUC). The legal indecisiveness still prevails over whether the examinations will be board or home exams. In a recent order, the Supreme Court asked the government to hold the board exams for these classes and referred the case to a division bench.
After the order of the Supreme Court, the board exams have been postponed by the government, the school education department has informed. Earlier, the Karnataka High Court’s two-judge panel, of Justices K Somashekar and Rajesh Rai K, gave the state administration permission to hold the board exams on March 11 as planned. In its order court overturned a single-judge bench’s decision to annul the state government’s announcement that classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 would have board exams. The Karnataka government filed an appeal against the single-judge judgment, and the interim order was passed.
However, the president of the Registered Associations of Private Unaided Schools Association said to challenge the order in the Supreme Court. The court allowed the appeals filed by the Registered Unaided Private Schools Association that challenged the interim order passed by the division bench of the High Court on March 7, staying a single bench judgment that quashed the government’s decision to hold board exams for classes 5, 8, 9 and 11. However, the board exam has already commenced in the state on March 11 and concludes on March 18.
The Court stated that the Division Bench should not have allowed the state government to continue with the examinations since the government notifications had already been invalidated by the High Court”s lone judge.
The petitioners claimed during the arguments that the State was not entitled to the Division Bench of the High Court”s considered ruling. Instead, similar to previous year, it had only secured a provisional order.
Reportedly, the Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board introduced a ‘centralized annual examination’ for classes 5 and 8 last year and through a notification issued in September 2023, informed about the board exams for class 9 and PUC (class 11). As per the State Board, no student shall be detained if they fail. In such cases, the school shall inform the students and parents about the result personally. And for PUC, the board will conduct a supplementary exam at the college level, if a student fails.
The Registered Associations of Private Unaided Schools argued that conducting board examinations for 5, 8, 9, and 11 violates the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) model under the Section 30 of the Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009. As per the RTE under CCE the exam and evaluation for classes 5,8,9 and 11 should not be board exams or centralized rather they should be done at the school level and the assessment of students should be based on their learning abilities.
The government’s argument behind the persistence of board exams is that no parent or student has petitioned the High Court to object to the examination and that the exams are being administered in the interests of the students. It further claims that the vested interests are the reason the private school group is contesting the government’s decision to hold exams.
The court also commenting about the perception to the board exams said, “State should not “complicate” the education system, as Board exams have their own scare.”
