Firewall distractions, download life skills: CBSE chief to students

New Delhi, February 14

Let your mind’s ‘web browser’ be “loose”, “download” competencies and life skills, “firewall” all distractions while concentrating on studies and treat exams as URLs of your lives, is the message of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) chairman Anita Karwal has for students ahead of board exams.

The CBSE Class XII exams would begin on Friday and conclude on April 3, while Class X exams would begin on February 21 and end on March 29.

Seeking to connect with students in the tech lingo they are so familiar with, the CBSE chief said, “Face your books and ‘insta’ your studies and let the hashtag ‘studentunstoppable’ trend”.

“The schooling years are the best years for scholarship and education because students’ ‘hard disc’ space is the most receptive in these years. You should let your mind’s ‘web browser’ loose and ‘download’ several life competencies and life skills,” Karwal said in a letter to students.

“There are ‘messengers’ (mentors) to help you identify ‘spams’ and ensure the ‘bandwidth’ of learning is fast and vast. Don’t forget you have multiple options such as ‘autocorrect’, ‘backspace’, ‘pause’, ‘shift’ or ‘delete’ to add value to education,” she said.

The CBSE chief advised students to “firewall” all distractions for the time being and let fun and games go to the ‘random access memory’, while stressing that exams should not be a measure of one’s success or failure.

“Exams are like ‘Uniform Resource Locators’ (URLs) of your lives that are meant to help you locate the real possibilities and resources that lie within you by optimising your knowledge ‘search engine’,” she said.

Karwal said, “In the future you will not even remember the marks you get now but let the days you spend working hard for exams be ‘router’ for a fulfilling life.” PTI