Mita Mukherjee

The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education on Thursday announced that the first and third semesters of the new bifurcated structure of the higher secondary course will be  based on multiple choice questions (MCQ) and students will be tested on short and broad answer type questions in second and fourth semesters.

The examinations to be held at the end of third and fourth semesters, which means in Class XII, will be conducted centrally by the council in which the setting of question papers and evaluation of answer scripts will be done by the council. In Class XI the examinations at the end of first and second semesters will be conducted by the respective schools under the guidance of the council.

The evaluation of the third semester examinations will be held fully through a computerized system, but the answer scripts of the first semester MCQ based test will be evaluated by the individual schools. In the first and third semesters, students will have to mark their answers on (optical mark recognition) OMR sheets which are used for MCQ questions.

The council on March 6 had announced its decision to split the higher secondary course into four semesters from the academic session 2024-25 following clearance from the state government. The state government issued a no objection certificate to the council to shift to the new bifurcated structure from the existing system of conducting single annual examinations. The new system will be applicable to students who will take admission in Class XI this year after the publication of results of the 2024 Madhyamik (Class X) examinations. For Class XII, the change will be applicable to students who get promoted to Class XII in 2025-26 academic session. Class XII students who will write the fourth semester examination in 2026 will be the first batch to clear the higher  secondary course under the new system. The same batch will also be the first batch to be evaluated through a fully computerized system in the third semester.

Apart from announcing the new examination and evaluation pattern, the council today also announced the new syllabus of 62 subjects to be offered to the students. The syllabus of 13 subjects of the vocational courses will be announced later after getting a nod from the state vocational education council.

Announcing the strategy to be followed for implementing the semester system, Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya, the council president said the new structure has been undertaken to align with the recommendations of the education policy adopted by the Bengal government this year.

“We are introducing the semester system as per the guideline of the state education policy of 2023. The policy clearly states that the semester system will have to be introduced in Class XI and XII and it has to be implemented by the state higher secondary council. We are moving in the direction as recommended in the policy,” Bhattacharya said announcing the decision.

Under the new system, there will be no selection test. Students will be promoted to the third semester, which means to Class XII on the basis of their scores in the first and second semesters.       

The council president said the syllabus of all the subjects had been thoroughly reviewed before bringing in the changes.

“ Substantial changes have been introduced in most of the subjects. But the science subject syllabus has been framed in tune with the NCERT syllabus in order to maintain parity with national boards,” Bhattacharya said.

The higher secondary syllabus was last revised 11 years ago.

The revised syllabus will be uploaded on the council website on Thursday night, the president said.

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