New Delhi, May 27 (PTI) Class 10 and 12 students who moved to a different state or district when schools were closed ahead of the COVID-19-induced lockdown, can appear for the pending board exams at their current places of stay, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal "Nishank" announced on Wednesday.

He said the students will not be required to travel back to their previous board exam centres.

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The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will announce the modalities of registration for such requests, the Union minister said.

"Class 10 and 12 students, who have to appear in the pending board exams but have moved to a different state or district during the lockdown when schools were closed, will be able to appear for the exams at their present places of stay. They will not be required to travel back. The CBSE will issue a notification in this regard and for the modalities of registration of such requests," Pokhriyal said.

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The exams, which were postponed due to the nationwide lockdown imposed on March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19, will now be held from July 1 to 15.

"It has come to the notice that due to the closure of schools because of the spread of COVID-19 and lockdown, some students are not present at the station from where they were appearing in the examinations prior to their postponement and it would be difficult for them to appear in the scheduled examinations from their existing examination centres," CBSE Secretary Anurag Tripathi said.

"Keeping in view the problem of the candidates who have shifted to other districts than the district of their examination centre, the CBSE has decided to shift their examination centres to their present districts. A notification will be issued by the CBSE in this regard in June. Such candidates are informed that they should remain in touch with their schools," he added.

The HRD ministry has already announced that students will appear for exams at the schools in which they are enrolled rather than external examination centres. The CBSE has decided to conduct the pending exams at 15,000 centres across the country, instead of the 3,000 planned earlier, to ensure social distancing and minimise travel.

According to home ministry guidelines, there will be no exam centre in the COVID-19 containment zones and the states will be responsible for making transport arrangements for the students to reach the centres.

Usually, board examinations are held at designated test centres to ensure minimum bias from schools and enable independent external invigilators to monitor the examination process.

While the Class 12 exams will be conducted across the country, the Class 10 exams are only pending in North East Delhi, where they could not be held due to the law-and-order situation in the wake of protests against the amended citizenship law.

The CBSE Class 10 and 12 board exam evaluation is being carried out from home.

The HRD ministry had earmarked 3,000 evaluation centres from where the answersheets would be distributed to teachers at their homes for evaluation and then collected.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16, when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Later, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. It has now been extended till May 31.

The board was not able to conduct the Class 10 and 12 exams on eight examination days due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Due to the law-and-order situation in North East Delhi, the CBSE was not able to conduct the exams on four examination days, while a very small number of students from and around the district were not able to appear in the exams on six days.

The board had last month announced that it will only conduct the pending exams in 29 subjects, which are crucial for promotion and admission to higher educational institutions.

The modalities of assessment for the subjects for which the exams are not being conducted will soon be announced by the board.

The schedule has been decided in order to ensure that the board exams are completed before the competitive examinations such as engineering entrance JEE-Main, which is scheduled from July 18-23, and medical entrance exam NEET that will be held on July 26.

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