Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Tuesday said that the upcoming CBSE standard X and XII examinations would be held only after February next year.

In a live interaction with teachers today, the education ministry said the decision on finalising the dates will be taken later by the government.

"The Classes 10 and 12 CBSE board exams 2021 will not be held in January and February. The exact exam schedule will be decided after February 2021," said Ramesh Pokhriyal.

"Cancelling exams and promoting students without exam will put a stamp on these students. These students might face trouble in getting jobs and admissions at higher education level in future as they would be termed as COVID-era students. We do not want that for our students," he added.

The Minister also said, "The exam will be conducted offline as we need a laptop and stable internet and electricity for each student which is a challenge".

"A percentage of students do not have equal access to education. While we have used unique methods to teach students but having such methods for exams might not be fair," he said.

Notably, the syllabus has been reduced up to 30 percent and will be scrapped further. 33 percent will comprise internal choices in the examination.