In a move that will bring cheer and relief to thousands of students across the state, the government of Tamil Nadu has struck down its order introducing public exams for classes 5 and 8. This announcement cancels the public exams that were scheduled to be held this March-April across the state. 

Tamil Nadu Minister for School Education KA Sengottaiyan made the statement on Tuesday cancelling the earlier government order (GO). In his statement, the Minister said that the decision to withdraw the GO issued on September 13 has been taken after the government received representations from various stakeholders. Sengottaiyan also said that the schools will continue to follow the existing system of examination and evaluation for the students in classes 5 and 8. 

This announcement to scrap public exams for classes 5 and 8 comes as a sudden development. On Monday, the Commissioner for School Education Sigy Thomas had given details regarding the evaluation scheme for the board exams for these two classes. 

In September 2019, the government of Tamil Nadu announced that board exams will be conducted for students of classes 5 and 8. A day after the government order was issued, KA Sengottaiyan said that the results of these examinations will not be published by the government for the first three years. The Minister had added that leniency was being provided so that students could have time to improve their skills gradually over this period of time and that this proposal had received good feedback from parents.

However, the announcement faced severe backlash from political parties in Tamil Nadu including AIADMK’s ally PMK, and the opposition DMK and CPI(M).