Lok Sabha Elections 2014: BMC asks schools to speed up final exams

SSC examination

While most state board schools have already declared their final examination dates to their students, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) education department this week threw their plans off gear by issuing circulars to all the state board schools, requesting them to wrap up the exams for Std I-VIII by March 24, so that school premises and teachers are free for election duty.

The diktat has caused quite a stir in school circles, most of whom have decided not to pay much heed to it.

Representation pic

Lok Sabha elections will be held in the city on April 24.

Priyanka Rajani, principal of Vidyanidhi High School and Junior College, said, "Earlier, teachers would start checking papers and preparing results after the exams concluded by April 10. But now, because of election training, they will have to hasten up the paper checking process and juggle it with election training and election duty work. We haven't received any circulars yet, but we will finish our exam by April 10 so that it does not clash with election duty."

Echoing Rajani, Rita Jadhav (name changed) a primary section teacher, said, "The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation circular came to our school three days ago, asking authorities to finish the exam by the end of March, whereas the final exams usually start in April. We have decided to start exams by March 24 and finish by April 5. This will keep the teachers free for election training and duty."

Shama Sheikh (name changed) principal of a south Mumbai school, said, "Yes, we received the circular from the BMC with the deadline. But since our schedule was preplanned a long time ago, and the circular came just a few days back, we cannot make any changes now. Our exams are starting from March 24 and we will try to finish by April 3. We will finish our exams much before the election work starts, and so there won't be any problems."