The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to cancel the SSC examinations this year, as the state sees a rising number of COVID-19 cases.
On Saturday, state Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh announced the decision to promote all the 6.3 lakh students without exams.
In a revised schedule, the Jaganmohan Reddy government had planned to conduct the exams from July 10 to 15, by limiting 11 exam papers to six.
Though arrangements like doubling the exam centres, sanitisers, thermal scanners etc. were made, the growth of COVID-19 cases in an uncontrolled manner led to the decision.
Earlier this month, the Telangana government had decided to cancel the 10th examinations and promote all 5.35 lakh students based on the internal assessment marks.
Tamil Nadu also took a similar decision, cancelling the board exams.
On Saturday, AP recorded 491 new cases surpassing the 465 cases on Friday. The state has, till now, a total of 8,452 cases, out of which 4,240 are active cases.
Five new COVID-19 related deaths were registered on Saturday, taking the overall toll to 101.
“Since the positive cases are growing, our chief minister Reddy took the decision for the sake of the worried students and their parents,” the minister said.
The intermediate supplementary examinations are also cancelled, with all applied students deemed to have passed. Their exam fees will also be returned.
The Opposition TDP and the BJP have been demanding that the exams be cancelled to keep students away from the possibility of contracting the virus.