AMARAVATI: The Andhra Pradesh government, in a major decision for the well-being of students, on Saturday announced the cancellation of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations that were postponed in the state earlier. Announcing the decision, Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh said that the decision was taken in the best interest of the students after duly considering all factors arising out of the prevailing coronavirus pandemic. The students will be promoted to the next class and awarded grades accordingly.

“The safety and well-being of the students is of paramount importance. The number of COVID-19 cases are on the rise. Situation can go out of control if the students come out of the safety of their homes to appear for the examinations. It is also difficult to coordinate all the departments, teachers and other staff to conduct the crucial examinations under these trying coronavirus times. Hence the decision to call off the 10^th class examinations,” the minister explained.

Similarly, the state government has also provided major relief to the Intermediate students who wished to appear for the Intermediate Advanced Improvement or supplementary examinations. The state government has cancelled these examinations also for all the students who failed in the regular Intermediate examinations for both first year and second year and were looking to sit for the supplementary examinations. The fees, wherever collected for the purpose of appearing for the supplementary examinations, will be duly refunded to all the students, Adimulapu Suresh announced.

The SSC examinations that were originally scheduled to be held from March 31, had been postponed to July due to the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus. On May 24, the state government had released the new timetable for the examinations. It was also decided to reduce the number of examinations only to six papers instead of the original schedule of 11 papers.

Now much to the relief of the students and the parents, all the suspense and tension over the issue will be a thing of the past since the Andhra Pradesh government led by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to prioritise the safety of the students over the conduct of the exams.

The AP government has already decided to promote students of classes 1 to 9 without holding annual examinations, in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Before Andhra Pradesh took this decision, a few other states including Telangana had already announced the cancellation of the crucial SSC exams in view of the continued corovavirus scare.