-Mita Mukherjee

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) have asked their schools in West Bengal to keep all arrangements ready to start the practical classes for Class XII students immediately after the state government gives its clearance to reopen the institutions.

The West Bengal government is likely to announce its decision on reopening of the schools for physical attendance of students in the state within a week, a senior official of the state school education department said.

The state health department is monitoring the Covid-19 situation in West Bengal. The government will  finalise the date of reopening schools and colleges after examining the reports, the official said.   

It has been already announced that the CBSE Class X and XII board examinations will start from May 4   and the practical examinations will start from March 1.

Shiharan Bose, deputy commissioner (in-charge) of the Bengal region of KVS said preparations are going on in full swing in all the KVS schools in the state to ensure that students of Class XII can be called back to the campuses immediately after the state government gives its clearance to reopen the schools.

“Almost all the KVS schools in Bengal are ready with the arrangements to start conducting the practical classes for Class XII students. The schools had been asked to complete teaching the syllabuses on the theoretical papers on all the subjects through the online teaching sessions. But the experiments in the practical papers will have to be done on the campuses.  We are waiting for the state government’s permission on reopening the schools. Students will start attending the practical classes immediately after we get the approval from the state school education department,” Bose told EducationWorld on Tuesday.               

There are 64 KVS schools under the Bengal region of which two are in Sikkim. The two KVS schools in Sikkim have partially reopened recently for the students of Class X and XII board examinees.

Mukta Nain, director, Birla High Schools, a private CBSE school said their campus was ready to start conducting the classes for Class XII students.

“Our campus is ready. We are waiting for the state government’s clearance. We are expecting to get the green signal from the government very soon,” said Mukta Nain.

There are around 230 CBSE schools (excluding the KVS) in the state.

Most CBSE and the KVS schools have set a target to start the on-campus classes for the Class XII students before January 15, according to the principals of some CBSE and KVS schools.

The schools want to start on campus classes for students of Class X and XII board examinations to enable them to clear their doubts.

But at first students of Class XII will be asked to attend the campuses, principals of schools said.    

“ We can ask students of both Class X and XII to attend the campuses if the government allows us to do so. But we need to start conducting the practical classes for Class XII as early as possible. The Class XII students need to practice the experiments properly before taking the board examinations in March,” said the principal of a KVS school.

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