LAHORE: The students of O and A levels demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan cancel the Cambridge Assessment International Education examination on Sunday after courts across the country turned down their petitions two days ago.

In an online campaign on twitter through the hashtag, #NCOCcancelexam, the students dispelled the impression that they were making the demand for being under-prepared, explaining that it was due to a spike in the coronavirus cases in the country. The students were also sending hundreds of messages to reporters asking them for support in the cancellation of the exams.

One of the tweets read: “17000 plus deaths in the country due to coronavirus pandemic and you think it’s ok to take exams?”

Another student tweeted: “Treatment of Cambridge towards developed countries versus undeveloped countries. If this is not discrimination than what else should we call it??”

One more tweet read: “If they conduct exams soon we will be in the list. But some will be in the corona death list and some in the corona infected list.”

“I have my grandparents at my home. I have my family. I have my younger siblings. I don’t want to put their lives in danger because of me.”

“I don’t want anyone praising the youth for being brave and giving these exams. We were not brave but were forced by the government to give these exams amidst the deadly third wave. We weren’t brave; the government was ignorant and selfish.”

They said due to the Covid lockdowns, they had to abruptly shift towards virtual classes and most of them were not prepared for it. “Our education was affected as there was a huge difference between a virtual and physical class,” they said.

The students say the disparity between the amount of knowledge retained and understood had left devastating effects on their performance last year. Most of the schools had not completed the course for many subjects due to online classes and additional school closures in 2020 that continued in 2021. They said the senior batch of 2020 did not have to face the music the way the 2021 batch was facing due to the pandemic.

The students revealed that several schools had not disclosed Covid cases among their faculty and students, claiming that there were a lot of patients in schools who might choose to skip exams to recover from the infection.

They said the students of local education boards not only got their syllabus reduced, but were also given extra time to prepare for exams but they were deprived of any such relaxation.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2021