April 26th 2024.
According to sources, the Ministry of Education has instructed the CBSE to make arrangements for conducting board exams twice a year starting from the 2025-26 academic session. This decision has been made in an effort to provide students with more opportunities to showcase their academic performance. However, the plan to introduce a semester system has been ruled out.
In order to facilitate this change, the ministry and the CBSE will be seeking input from school principals next month. Together, they will work out the logistics of conducting board exams twice a year without disrupting the undergraduate admission schedule. As one source explains, "The ministry has asked the CBSE to figure out how to make this happen. The board is currently in the process of determining the details and will be discussing with school principals next month."
The proposal being considered is to have two editions of board exams at the end of each academic year, starting from 2025-26. However, the specifics are still being worked out and there are no plans to implement a semester system. The ministry's original plan was to introduce biannual exams from the 2024-25 academic session, but it has now been pushed back by a year.
This idea is in line with the new national curriculum framework, developed by a committee led by former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, as per the National Education Policy 2020. The framework suggests a semester system for students in classes XI and XII, and also proposes giving students the option to take board exams twice a year.
As the CBSE works on finalizing the schedule for these changes, their main focus is to ensure that students are able to benefit from this new system and that the goal of making board exams less stressful is achieved. However, there are challenges in terms of logistics and the board is determined to address them in order to make this plan a success.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has made it clear that appearing for board exams twice a year will be completely optional for students. "Just like the engineering entrance exam JEE, students will have the choice to appear for the exams twice a year and can select the best score. There will be no compulsion," he stated in an interview with PTI last October.
It is worth noting that this is not the first attempt at reforming board exams. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system was introduced for Class X in 2009, but was later revoked in 2017 and the old model of year-end exams was reinstated. Even during the Covid pandemic, the board exams for classes X and XII were split into two terms as a one-time measure, but the traditional year-end exams resumed this year.
PTI (Press Trust of India)
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