Maharashtra: Art students in stress as drawing marks to be scrapped

Students gather at CST, demand postponement. Pic/Bipin Kokate

In bad news for students of Secondary School Certificate (SSC), their additional marks for clearing the Intermediate Drawing Examination, may not be considered this year.

The Higher and Technical Education Department of the state government has recommended this measure, after declaring that the Directorate of Art will not conduct the said examination this year, considering the pandemic conditions. This leads to major confusion for SSC students excelling at drawing, who were seeking to attain the benefits of these additional marks in their overall score.

This puts lakhs of students in a state of confusion a month ahead of their SSC exams, especially because the school education department or the state board has not issued any such directive.

"There are students who have cleared these exams when they were in class VII or VIII, two years ago, with the hope that they would be able to avail the facility of extra marks in SSC. This would be really unfair to such students," shared an art teacher from a school in Ghatkopar.