The Central Board of Secondary Education class 10th and 12th board examinations will begin from Thursday, February 15. More than 39 lakh students will appear in the exams this year from India and 26 other countries. In Delhi, more than 5.8 lakh students will take the exams at 877 centres. The exams are scheduled to begin at 10:30 am. The advisory has been issued by CBSE in the wake of farmers' protests going on at the borders of the national capital. While the class 10th exam will begin on February 15 and continue till March 13, class 12 board exams will be conducted from February 15 to April 2.
CBSE advisory
The CBSE on Wednesday issued an advisory for students who are set to take the exams tomorrow. The board has asked students to leave their homes early and arrive at the examination centres on time. The CBSE advisory said that traffic restrictions are currently in place in the national capital in view of the farmers' protest, so all students are advised to reach the examination centres by 10 am.
"As the examination starts at 10:30 AM, hence all the students have been directed to reach their examination centres on or before 10 AM, " the advisory read. In view of the current situation in Delhi, the board said it is expected that there will be traffic issues that might cause a delay in reaching the examination centres.
"Hence, all the students are advised to leave their homes early so that they can reach well on time as per instructions issued by the CBSE. It is advisable to use metro services to reach the examination centres since they are running smoothly."
Schedule of exams
On the first day, the exams will be held in sessions: from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm and from 10:30 pm to 2:30 pm. On other days, it will be held in one, two, three and four sessions.
Last year, the overall past percentage for class 10 was 93.12%. A total of 21.6 lakh candidates had appeared for the examination of which 20.1 lakh candidates passed. The overall percentage for class 12 was 87.33%. Trivandrum district had secured the top spot with a 99.91 past percentage. The girls' past percentage was 90.68%.
Datesheet revised
The CBSE revised the date sheet for class 10th and 12th board exams last month. Some minor subject exams for classes 10 and 12 were rescheduled with a few postponed and others advanced.
In the revised class 10th datasheet, the retail paper, originally scheduled for February 16 was postponed to February 28. The French and Tibetan papers will now be conducted on February 20 and February 23 respectively against their initial dates of March 5 and March 4.
The class 12 date sheet has been revised considering national entrance exams, including the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Mains 2024.
Two board exams from next year
The Centre in August last year had announced major changes in the education system, in line with the new education policy. The Education Ministry had said that board exams would be conducted twice a year, with students allowed to retain the best scores.
In order to make the board exams "easier" than the current "high stakes" practice, the examiners will assess the understanding and achievement of competencies, rather than focusing on how much a student has memorised, the centre had said. As per the updated curriculum framework, the choice of subjects in classes, 11th and 12th will not be restricted to streams such as arts, science and commerce, to give students flexibility to choose.
