Bhubaneswar: Showcause has been issued to two private schools in Odisha capital for holding the annual exam for Class IX and XI students in offline mode.
“We have asked the schools to give students the options of online, offline and hybrid mode for exams as per the government order. Schools that had decided to opt for offline exams have switched to both the online and offline modes as per the earlier order,” said director, Directorate of Secondary Education, Satya Ranjan Sahu was quoted as saying by TOI.
Besides violating the government order, the parents argued that it was unfair for the students to appear in person for the exam as they have been attending classes online for the last 2 years.
Teachers, however, expressed concern over the “growing fear of offline exams” among the students and said that parents should not encourage this, the report added.
A reputed private school in Bhubaneswar was earlier issued a show-cause for asking students to appear for periodic assessment via the offline mode, while the government directive had specifically mentioned that students would have the option to attend classes offline, online or in hybrid mode.
Notably, Odisha has been witnessing a sharp decline in COVID cases with less than 200 fresh infections being reported for the last five days.