Parents irate as school doesn't allow students to wear wristwatches in CBSE exam

Students were giving their exams at Seven Square Academy. Pic/Datta Kumbhar

On Monday, the Seven Square Academy at Mira Road gave a hard time to students appearing for their Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Std XII examination, by not allowing them to wear wristwatches while writing the paper. Angry parents have now approached CBSE with a written complaint. The school claims it did so to ensure there was no cheating.

The issue came to light on Monday evening, when parents of a few students from MKVV school in Borivli, who are appearing for the exam in the Mira Road school, first took the complaint to their school after the paper was over. While the school has claimed it had placed wall clocks in classrooms for the students, the children have denied this, alleging there were none, because of which they could not manage their time properly.

Nimisha Singh, principal, MKVV school, told mid-day, "Parents did approach us in panic on Monday. But it is beyond our control, as another school is the exam centre."

No such regulation
"We were surprised when our wards came out of the exam and told us about it. There is no such regulation for board exams. If there were one, each school would have informed their students accordingly. Moreover, there were no wall clocks in the classrooms either. Due to this, students could not appear for the exam properly," said Dr. Debesh Das, one of the parents.

Confirming there were no wall clocks, another parent, Mehul Saha, said, "There should be uniformity in whatever regulations they have. If one school is allowing wristwatches and another isn't, how are the students supposed to understand it? Also, it is inappropriate to suddenly tell children about a new regulation when they are about to appear for their first paper."

Just providing infra
Meanwhile, Sudeep Arora, principal, Seven Square Academy, said, "The school is just providing infrastructure. There are designated officials from CBSE who run the exam centre, where we cannot interfere. We have provided one deputy coordinator to help the head coordinator appointed by CBSE." Arora further clarified, "Wall clocks were provided in each classroom and were placed either near the blackboard or on the invigilator's table. Students of our school are also appearing for the exams here."

The coordinator later gave this reporter a tour of four classrooms, and all of them had wall clocks.

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