Intermediate Sanskrit exam, SAT test clash in Telangana; students fear missing a year

Hyderabad: With hardly seven days left for his intermediate exam, Rahul (name changed), a second-year intermediate student in Telangana, is not sure if he should prepare for the Sanskrit exam or the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) test, the scores of which is required to get admission into his dream colleges. Unfortunately, both exams fall on the same day, 7 May, and almost during the same time. Like Rahul, 832 TSBIE students are in a dilemma and face uncertainty.

The intermediate language 2 paper, i.e., Sanskrit is scheduled to be held from 9 a.m to noon whereas the SAT test is scheduled from 8:30 a.m to 12:30 p.m. SAT test is an entrance exam for admission into colleges in the United States. Some of the premiere institutes in India also considers SAT scores for admission. "I am not sure whether to prepare for the SAT test or the Sanskrit board exam. There are only seven days left and I am scared. If the confusion is sorted, I can plan and prepare accordingly," says Rahul.

The biggest fear expressed by the students is missing a year whereas the parents say that through no fault of theirs, the students are put in a difficult situation. "This round of SAT exams is the last one for this academic year. The next one is in August. By then the admissions for this year would be over. If we miss this round, we miss a whole year and we will have to face a lot of issues if we are stuck at home for a year," says Mohan (name changed), another second-year intermediate student. He also says how dropouts have very less chance of getting selected for a course.

Earlier, in March 2022, another round of the SAT test was conducted. But many students could not attend as most of the centres, including Hyderabad, were cancelled due to Covid-19.

"Also, aspirants repeatedly write SAT exams to improve their scores. So, the number of aspirants will also be very high in each of these rounds," says Mohan who wishes to pursue the five-year integrated programme at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) or the five-year degrees in Economics and Computer Science available at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). In both institutes, SAT scores are a selection criterion.

Rahul, on the other hand, wants to do engineering and aims to get into the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) or BITS, also where the SAT scores do matter.

The parents of these students met state education minister Sabitha Indira Reddy requesting to postpone the intermediate exam by a day to which the minister agreed. But later the decision was rejected allegedly by chief secretary Somesh Kumar citing multiple postponements and delays.

"7 May is a Saturday. We are just asking for a postponement by a day. The minister had agreed to postpone the exam to Sunday. But now they are saying it will be difficult for officials to conduct exams on Sunday. Such cancellations and conducting of exams on Sundays had happened during the Covid-19 pandemic," points out one of the parents.

The parents also suggest that if the government is unable to conduct the exam on a Sunday, at least it can consider rescheduling the exam to the afternoon on the same day. "The government is just not bothered because it is a matter of 832 students only. But every student matters," added a parent.

Earlier, TSBIE had postponed the intermediate board examination and rescheduled it from 6 to 24 May after students expressed concerns about the exams clashing with the IIT-JEE entrance examination. JEE Mains 2022 will be conducted between 21 April and 4 May and 24 May to 29 May.

The names of the students have been changed as they wished not to be identified.