Hyderabad: Private schools promote grade 9 students to class 10th sans exams

Hyderabad: Back at it again, flouting the rules of the Education department, SSC schoolsin the State have promoted their Class 9 students to Class 10 without conducting exams for the students. Though things are now back to normal unlike the situation during the Covid-19 pandemic when students were promoted based on their overall performance, the SSC still continue to follow the same and promote their students without conducting the Summative assessment II (final) exams.

Unlike the CBSE and ICSE boards which are providing quality education to the higher classes students and focusing on their overall curriculum performances, the SSC board nor the education department and neither the school managements are bothered about their children's performance.

According to few teacher associations, promoting class 9 students without conducting exams is not a new practice. This has been going on since the Covid pandemic. Every year the Education department releases Summative Assessment II (final exam) time table, but the department is reluctant on forming a regulatory Committee for inspecting school activities. Taking this as an advantage, the SSC schools are promoting their class 9 students to class 10 without conducting exams, so as to finish their class 10 syllabus at the earliest.

"As a common practice, CBSE and ICSE usually holds exams for class 9 students and if a student fails to clear the exam, he/she is retained in the same class again. But many SCC board private schools are not following the Education department rules and are promoting their students without bothering about their overall performance. This practice is influencing students and making them very lenient towards their academics," said Bhaskar Rathore, a private school teacher.

Class 9 is the base for class 10. Subjects like Science and Math should be given utmost importance in Class 9 as it is the base of class 10 and Intermediate syllabus. How will the schools get to know a student's performance in the Class 9 exams without conducting exams, asked a teacher.

"According to the rules of the Education department a school cannot promote their students without conducting exams as it is mandatory for the schools to upload the marks obtained on the education department site. The question which arises now is how are the schools uploading the marks in the website without conducting exams? asked Shabbir Ali, President, Telangana Private Teachers' Forum and added that the Education department must conduct regular inspections and see to it that none of the students are promoted without conducting exams.