AP SSC exams 2020: Succumbing to pressures from parents’ organizations and demands from the opposition parties, the Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday announced the cancellation of Secondary School Certificate (Class 10) examinations in the state.

As a result, all the 6.3 lakh students who were supposed to write the Class 10 examinations will be declared passed.

This was announced by state minister for education Adimulapu Suresh at a press conference in Vijayawada in the evening. He said the decision was taken in view of the growing intensity of Covid-19 in the state and keeping in view the health of students.

The minister said the SSC examinations which were originally scheduled to be held in March/April, had been postponed twice due to a series of lockdown enforced by the state and the Centre to contain the spread of Coronavirus.

“However, after the lockdown restrictions were relaxed and situation has become normal, the government decided to hold the Class 10 examinations from July 10 to 17 and made all the arrangements to that effect. We also reduced the number of examinations from 11 to 6 so as to reduce the burden on students,” he said.

However, after reviewing the Coronavirus situation in the state which has been alarming in the last few days, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had decided that it would be better to cancel the SSC examinations as was done in other states in the best interests of the students and their parents.

“We shall soon decide on the guidelines to allot grades to the passed SSC students, based on their performance in the periodical assessment tests,” he said.

Interestingly, Suresh also announced that the advanced supplementary examinations for Intermediate first and second years to be held in July were also being cancelled in view of the Covid-19 situation. “The students, who could not pass the previous two successive Intermediate examinations in the past, will be deemed to have been passed,” he said.

On Friday, BJP state chief Kanna Lakshminarayana dashed off a letter to the chief minister demanding cancellation of the exams, fearing that the Covid-19 pandemic has entered into community transmission stage.

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu also wrote a similar letter to Jagan, demanding that the SSC examinations be canceled in the interest of the students’ safety.