Affected by Pandemic, Parents Want Relaxation in CBSE Board Exam Fee

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked schools to prepare and send a list of candidates appearing for class 10, 12 board exams. To be eligible to appear for boards, students have to pay a board exam fee. Families which have been affected by the pandemic are demanding the state governments to intervene and offer relaxation.

Delhi government had in 2019 announced that it will cover the expense of examination fees for Board students, however, as the world entered the pandemic era, a substantial crunch in funding was observed, and the Delhi government issued a notice saying that they would not be able to pay the examination fee for classes 10 and 12 students.

In 2019, the Kejriwal-led government paid the fees for roughly 3.14 lakh students. In the same year, the Union government announced that the examination fee will be increased to Rs 1200 from Rs 365 for SC/ST students and Rs 1500 from Rs 600 for the general category students. Following this massive hike, in October 2020, the Delhi government announced that it will not be paying for the examination fee since the resulting amount is estimated to be around Rs100 crore, which the government cannot afford in the pandemic-wounded economy.

The All-India Parents Association stated its disappointment with the Union government’s decision to increase the fee. Citing the recent developments in the issue, the association, in a letter to the government association was cited as saying by the Indian Express, “More than 1.5 lakh students transferred from private to government schools, following the decision of the Union Minister to facilitate the shift from private to government institutions without any transfer certificates. As a result, people who got their children transferred will have difficulty paying the examination fee.”

The letter added, “The economic situation of the Delhi Government is improving, which is evident from the various schemes launched by the government, for example, the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum, which involves the government paying Rs.2000 seed money to all the senior students.”

The association is demanding that the government aids in the payment of fees since the students’ future is at stake. The pandemic forced the schools to crowdsource fundings from multiple sources as they couldn’t handle the expenses themselves.

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