Please Listen

So I’ll be just writing here what I think. So we students are demanding exams to be cancelled and
marks to be assessed internally or to be postponed or in hybrid mode. But the government is not
listening to us & I shall say that I’m not surprised at all. It’s of no surprise that the govt is acting
tyrannically and not being democratic as it is meant to be. We are demanding exams to be cancelled
not just because of pandemic, but because also we don’t know a thing about what we learnt in last
two years. Our 11th std didn’t happen (I’m in 12th HSC btw) and as a result we didn’t knew a thing or
two about what or how we were supposed to learn in 12th std. Most of our 12th std was in online
mode, not in offline most as you may already know. The teachers weren’t familiar with the mode of
teaching and thus their teaching experience and our learning experience was pretty awful. And
that’s not the only thing that bothered us here. Poor network connectivity, mobile phones glitching
all the time & some students not having either a phone or a good network or in some cases both.
And yet you are persistent that exams shall be conducted in an offline mode. How do you even think
that’s possible or that’s going to lead to something good? No test in our colleges/schools were
conducted in an offline mode, everything was online. And I don’t think that gave us any experience
of writing papers offline. Then how do you expect us to write offline board papers?! How’s that even
possible? The colleges gave us a ton of assignments to write at home & also the completion of our
journals. Most of our time went doing that and not studying or practicing anything. And now to you
are expecting us to perform practicals instead of studying. What we should even do? Just listen to
the students for a while. Don’t act like autocrats, you are democratically leaders and therefore you
should listen to the people, their problems and their demands & thus solve their problems or fulfil
their demands. Don’t be so stubborn. Think about the nation, think about the future of the nation.
WE the students are the future of nation. You should think in peace, just sit down, take a sip of
water and listen to what we are demanding in a sane way. Our education minister Varsha Gaikwad
said that no representation has been submitted yet, but how can you lie? Many students and
notable organisations like AIJNSA submitted representation at Mumbai HQ. How can a cabinet
minister lie in front of media? You are also saying that why we are protesting, we shouldn’t be
protesting. The answer is we protested because you hadn’t yet responded to our tweets, our social
media posts, our messages and emails. You didn’t listen to at first and that’s the reason we had to
protest. You even lathi charged us there! Many were traumatised by that incident just like they were
during pandemic. But I do strongly condemn the violence that happened during those protests
which shouldn’t have had happened. So why do you think we are putting forth our demand to
cancel exams and to assess the marks internally? That’s because of Covid, Mental Illnesses we are
facing and also the awful quality of education we received in last two years. We students faced
many mental illnesses like Depression, Anxiety, Stress, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and
suicidal tendency during this period due to various reasons. Some students due to these mental
illnesses committed suicide which is the worst that could happen. And your stubbornness was the
reason this happened and is still unfortunately happening. You think we are not humans, you think
we are machines. You are trying to enslave us but you can’t do so. So please listen to our demands,
they are our very basic rights which we deserve. So please cancel the exams and assess the marks
internally. Lakhs of students all across India, Maharashtra and many other states are requesting you,
are begging you and raising their voices against exams and yet you aren’t listening. This shouldn’t
happen in 21st century but it is sadly happening. Conducting exams offline is like trying to construct a
building without a base and you are just trying to lay the bricks in air hoping them to form a
structure. That can’t happen, that’s impossible. So to summarise it all, our 11th std didn’t happen,
most of our 12th std happened online in which it wasn’t possible to learn like offline mode, we
weren’t taught good enough, we faced and are facing several mental illnesses and we don’t know
how to appear for exams in an offline mode. So please, please cancel the exams & assess marks
internally and listen to the students.

Yours Sincerely,
A common Indian student.