Education

Chess Grandmaster takes on CBSE. Here’s why.

This is the story of a Chess Player from India. I am not allowed to name him by his lawyer Rishi Malhotra but suffice to say that he is 16 years old and one of the youngest Chess Grandmasters from India. 

Now why am I telling you all this? 

Because he is one of the lakhs of students who was to appear for the Class X Board exams in India. He is a student of a prestigious school in Delhi and just when he was to take the CBSE Class X Boards in February, he was diagnosed with extreme stress related anxiety disorder and excruciating headache. The same is supported by medical prescriptions. The boy needed psychiatrist treatment and counselling at that time. As a result, he could not take any of the exams that were conducted in February-March. 

His father wrote to the CBSE and the Board graciously agreed to conduct all the exams for him between July 1 and 15 with a new datesheet, coinciding with the time when the pending exams were to be conducted. But with the July schedule completely cancelled by the CBSE, the student got stuck. His provisional promotion to class 11 is now in jeopardy.

As per the assessment scheme formulated by the CBSE, there is nothing for students who were unable to take even a single exam. All that the CBSE did was to give benefit to class 12 students who had appeared in one or two papers, by awarding marks by way of internal assessment.  

Now the father has approached the Supreme court for justice because if some kind of remedy is not provided, the student, for no fault of his would stand to lose a year and will have to repeat Class 10. 

The case is being fought by Senior SC Advocate Rishi Malhotra who incidentally had taken the CBSE to court, praying for the cancellation of the exams in July 2020 because of the Covid 19 scare. Malhotra has prayed that the court issue an order  directing CBSE to award marks to the student on the basis of internals / projects/ practical assessments and that CBSE should be asked to allow him to continue to attend his class 11. 

All eyes are on whether the CBSE will make the right move and give the chess champ a chance to win this match to move into the 11th round. 

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