Mumbai: 79 per cent students don’t want offline board exams

Std X students leave from Samta Vidya Mandir school in Kandivli after submitting their SSC exam forms. File pic

While the state government has taken a firm stand on having board exams offline in April-May, in a latest survey, 79 per cent of students have expressed dissatisfaction with the decision. The survey by a city teacher with a considerable sample size of over 1.5 lakh reveals unhappiness, fear and stress among students, 33 per cent of whom are also considering taking a drop this year due to lack of preparedness.

Students and parents have been concerned about the exams amid rising COVID-19 cases. Representation pic

Considering the increasing COVID cases in the city, there are worries about the offline exam. At the same time, students and parents are constantly raising concerns about unpreparedness owing to a year of online learning, which hasn't been effective enough. The survey by Dineshkumar Gupta shows that 69 per cent of students are unhappy with online learning and 84 per cent feel that there should be a further reduction in the syllabus.

The survey was conducted online and was open for responses for four days. A total of 1,58,601 students responded. Only eight per cent students said they are satisfied with online learning, 61 per cent said they would prefer online exams, while 79 per cent said that with changing times, the pattern of exams should change, too.

On the topic of travelling to exam centres, 53 per cent expressed discomfort, while 14 per cent said that only 50 per cent of the syllabus has been taught at their school/college and 20 per cent said that they are only half prepared for the exam.

Results of the question on satisfaction with online lectures with orange indicating full satisfaction, yellow partial satisfaction, green no satisfaction and red indecision

"As the state government has now created a committee to form directives for safe and smooth board examinations, it is very important that the committee knows students' concerns. Through my YouTube channel, I have a good reach among students so I decided to conduct the survey, " Gupta said.

He added, "The findings clearly show the stress students are under, especially because online learning has not been successful. Many are talking about how they feel unprepared for the board exam. The government has to address the students' concerns to reduce their stress," said Gupta, a mathematics teacher from a civic school. Gupta also manages a YouTube channel where he gives mathematics lessons.

1.58L
Approximate no. of respondents in the survey