-Mita Mukherjee

The West Bengal Class XII board examinations of 2021 will be held in July end and the state’s class X board  examinations will be conducted in the second week of August, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Thursday.

The two board tests will be held in home centres, that is students will sit in their own schools and write the examinations instead of going to other external centres, the chief minister said.

The West Bengal 2021 Madhyamik (Class X) and the Higher Secondary (Class XII) were scheduled to be held from June 1 to10 and June 15 to July 2 respectively.

Nearly 12 lakh students are likely to write the Madhyamik and around 8.5 lakh will write the Higher Secondary this time.

According to the chief minister, the government has taken the decision to conduct the Class XII board examinations before to ensure that students aspiring to seek admissions in national and international institutions for pursuing higher studies do not lag behind their counterparts of other boards in the wake of the decision to postpone the board exams due to the Covid-situation.  

“The uncertainty over the conduct of the board exams has landed students in a fix. We have decided to conduct the Higher Secondary (class XII) exams before so that our students can compete with the students of other boards for seeking admissions in the higher studies,” Mamata Banerjee said.   

The chief minister said that the duration of the tests in each subject will be shorter than the usual time allotted in each paper.  For example, if the normal duration of a test in a particular subject is three hours, the test in that subject will be of only one and half hours this year, the chief minister said.

Since the duration of the examinations has been halved,  students too will have to write only half the total number of questions. For example, say in a particular subject students are supposed to answer ten questions.  This time they will have to answer only five instead of ten.

The board will conduct the tests only in the main compulsory papers. No exam will be conducted by the boards for the optional subjects. Students will be awarded marks in the optional papers on the basis of their performance in the internal assessments and examinations held by the individual schools throughout the year.

The chief minister said every school will have to conduct the examinations maintaining all the Covid-19 protocols. The schools will be asked to sanitise the campuses well in advance and ensure students’ safety during the exams. 

Also read: Majority of states opt for CBSE’s option 2 for class 12 exams