No board exams for Classes 5, 8 9 and 11; Karnataka HC quashes govt notification

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday quashed a government notification on conducting state-level board examinations for students of Classes 5, 8 9 and 11. The court, which was hearing a petition filed by private school managements, upheld their arguments and noted that examinations for these classes should be conducted at the school level itself as was being done earlier.

The public examinations were to be held between March 9 and 11, but a bench of Justice Ravi Hosamani struck down the notification. Private unaided schools had questioned the two government notifications on conducting board examinations for Classes 5, 8, 9 and 11, issued on October 6 and 9 last year.

In the petition, the private school managements contended that the notification applies to only government schools and the public examinations are not part of the curriculum. The government had said that the question papers would be prepared based on the learning recovery (Kalika Chetarike) programme and students of private schools would find it difficult as the curriculum followed in private and government schools are different. The associations had also pleaded that public examinations for the above-mentioned classes should not be conducted.

The lawyers for the government argued that the learning recovery (Kalika Chetarike) programme was also part of the curriculum and is based on the regular syllabus. The programme has been designed to improve learning among children and the question papers will not have questions from outside the syllabus, they argued