With approval from the state government, SSC board examinations will begin on May 17. The proposal sent across by the State Education Department got accepted on Saturday, thereby blocking the dates of May 17– May 26 for the grade X final exams.
There will be a total of 89 offline working days for grades IX and X as classes commence on February 1st after a long gap filled with virtual classes. Summer vacation will start from May 27 to June 13, as May 26th becomes the last working day.
Under the guidance of school teachers and parents, up to 30% of the syllabus will be completed through projects and assignments at home itself, the calendar says, although this won’t make it to the portion of both the internal assessments and the final examinations at the end of the year. The rest 70% will be taught to students via online and offline means and will become the basis of the boards.
As such, the first formative Assessment (FA1) is expected to be held on March 15th while the second of its kind, the FA2, will be done by April 15th. The finals are likely to be conducted from May 7th – May 13th.
No minimum attendance is required for students to appear for the exams. Those who are willing to write the exams are to be permitted for it, without pestering them to attend classes for becoming eligible.
Under no grounds can any student be stopped from writing examinations, the SED said.
Due to the pandemic induced problems, schools began conducting alternate virtual classes for all grades from 1st September 2020. The department is calculating the total number of classes as 204, including 115 days of digital classes that were held from Sept 1st,2020 to January 30th, 2021 and offline classes to be started from Feb 1st stretching up till May 26th.
Online classed for grades IX will be conducted from 4 pm to 5 pm while for grade X, they will be from 10 am to 11 am.
While in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, the timings for the physical classroom teaching, as and when they begin, are from 9.30 am to 4.45 pm, in the rest of the state, students have to attend school from 8.45 am to 4 pm.
Regular health check-ups of students willing to attend physical classes will be organized. As a means to stay prepared for any unforeseen situation, the headmasters were told to store the contact numbers of the nearest primary health center or other trustworthy medical facilities to be able to reach the school during an emergency.
Isolation rooms for those students and staff who show symptoms of covid-19 was also instructed to be arranged.
“In case, the child has symptoms of Covid-19, the parents should be contacted and transport should be arranged to send the child back to their residence with a proper escort,” it read.
The calendar requires PTMs (parent-teacher meetings) to be held prior to the school reopening to allow them to attain knowledge on immunity development, maintenance of mental and physical health through hygiene, physical distancing, and general awareness of the disease. Apart from this, they will also be asked to take the necessary precautions before and after the school reopening with the installation of the Aarogya Setu App.
