Posted on : 20-05-2020

The Goa Government’s decision to hold the 10th & 12th school exams from 21st March is a perilous decision that will put nearly all of us in harm’s way.
Hasty decisions have been made and then overturned even faster leading to an all-out confusion and panic amongst citizens. The initial few days of lockdown, when we all stayed locked in without the essential items and paramilitary forces around street corners are a stark memory of how ineffective decision-making effects each one us. Despite this, we have all stood as one with the State Government and cooperated to make sure we defeat the COVID-19. The threat of a COVID-19 outbreak isn’t over and with every fallacy of our Esteemed Leader, we are being pushed into the clutches of this deadly virus.
While people appreciate a leader with a spine, people love a leader who stands up for the right causes instead of serving narrow political gains. Playing with the lives of the children and seriously threatening the spread of community transmission amongst Goenkars is condemnable. While the entire world is actively following social distancing measures and the Central Ministry of Home Affairs has made it clear that schools should stay shut, it is difficult to fathom why the CM is toying with such a foolhardy idea. While Goa University exams can be pushed to a later date, what is the rush in conducting board exams?
It is shameful that parents have to knock on the Court’s door for protecting the lives of their children at such times. While it is obvious that this is the most inopportune time to hold the Exams, our Esteemed Leader doesn’t seem to think so. We had a golden corridor to hold the Exams between the time that Goa was declared a Green Zone and the influx of people from other states and countries. Ineffective administration and a chance political low blow kept the CM from taking a decision at that time. The Central Board has announced the date for their exams which will be conducted much later and with all the necessary arrangements in place.
Every waking day we learn or rather unlearn what we thought was the pattern of the virus. Asymptomatic carriers are aplenty and they may not even know it, the virus is spreading faster than we are catching up to it. Developed countries across the world and other states in India are still struggling to get a hold of treatment protocols and containing the outbreak. So many questions and doubts come to mind about how the infection could spread.
How do we know that one of the kids attending the exam hasn’t been infected through people coming in the state from outside Goa? Multiple people who traveled on trains along with COVID 19 positive patients, there is a possibility that they might have contracted the disease now. For that matter, the bus drivers and conductors ferrying the students could have been infected and it is so easy for another outbreak to occur. One of the teachers or examiners, who have been selflessly serving in household surveys could be an asymptomatic carrier. There could be so many ways of the infection spreading in this second wave and it is unfathomable that we are willing to expose our children, the most vulnerable among us. Not just our children, but teachers, parents, the common man, and entire neighbourhoods will be at risk if we enter the phase of community transmission. In the last 3 days, the number of active cases has jumped to 41.
In this scenario, it is impossible to conduct examinations in a completely sanitized manner. And anyone who believes otherwise is irresponsible and reckless or living in an alternate reality.
My son is in 10th grade and I too want the exams to be over quickly but not at the risk of my son’s life. With a heavy heart I ask, what good is the exam whose results might not be in a mark sheet but in the number of body bags? My dear Goenkars, I am not raising this issue with our Esteemed Leader – the Chief Minister of Goa as a politician but as a parent just like anyone of you. I am just a father appealing to the leader of my state to be democratic and considerate rather than be the modern version of Stalin. The way our Goa CM is disregarding parents’ appeal and planning to go ahead with the exams is as good as threatening to forcibly take our children from homes and thrust them into the face of certain peril.
A decision like this to portray an illusion of normalcy to the rest of the world while turning a blind eye to people’s sufferings is a classic sign of a fascist leader indulging in political one-upmanship. The need of the hour is a leader who can lead us through this crisis not a politician who wants to score brownie points with body bags.
When the right to live is openly violated by a State order it’s time we remember dastardly leaders like Joseph Stalin who subjected citizens to cruel hardships, just because he could.
I am sadly reminded of Stalin and the Chicken episode wherein just to make a point to a journalist, the hedonistic Father of Russia cruelly plucks the feathers of a live chicken and then feeds it grain with the same hand that had inflicted so much pain to the chicken minutes before.
I really hope that the Chief Ministers listens to the voice of the people and revokes the decision to conduct exams in such a hurry.