Classes 5, 8 board exams to be on entire syllabus

The model question papers recently released by the government for both the standards indicate that the students have to study three volumes of textbooks for all the subjects. Unlike the usual practice where students who reach the third and final semester would not study the first semester textbooks.

The move has come at a time when the teachers were expecting the annual question papers to be prepared based on the third semester textbooks as this was the first year board exams were implemented for Classes 5 and 8.

“The questions appeared in the model paper released by the Directorate of Examination was based on all the three semester textbooks,” said S Kavitha, a Class 5 teacher of government aided school in Pallavaram.

She claimed that it would be difficult for the students to recollect or once again study the semester 1 and 2 textbooks.

Echoing similar views, P Savithiri, school principal in a State-run school in Tambaram said, with the School Education Department’s recent order that all government and government aided schools should begin a book bank by collecting old books that could be distributed to the students next year, most of the Class 5 and Class 8 students have returned the first and second semester books to the book bank of the school management.

Stating that most of the students returned the textbooks, Tamil Nadu Teachers Association President P K Ilamaran said that the government should not prepare question paper based on three semester textbooks. “The government should re-consider it and prepare question paper based on the third semester textbooks,” he said.

“After seeing the model question paper, a fear has been created among the children,” he added.