The state higher secondary council is planning to split the HS examinations into two semesters, to be held in November and March, from 2026, instead of holding annual exams, council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said on Wednesday.
He said the council plans to split the Class XI annual exams into two semesters as well.
The plan is likely to be implemented from the batch that takes admission to Class XI in 2024, said a council official.
The council president said they have taken up the plan after the Bengal cabinet on Monday approved the state education policy, which advocates splitting the HS exams.
The draft state education policy says: “The council may consider introducing a semester system in Class 11 and 12 to ease the transition from school to university. Examinations at higher secondary level could be reformed in a phased manner to contain a combination of MCQs & descriptive questions.”
The draft details the extent of the Bengal government’s adoption of the National Education Policy 2020, which also speaks about restructuring board exams in Class XII by introducing MCQs (multiple choice questions) along with descriptive questions.
Bhattacharya said: “We have plans to set MCQs in the first-semester exam that the Class XII students are likely to write in November 2025. This will be followed by another exam in March 2026, where students are going to be tested on short and long descriptive questions. The students would be assessed based on their performance in the two semesters.”
Those who get admitted to Class XI in 2024 are likely to write the first-semester exams in November 2024, followed by another exam in March 2025.
A council official said since the semester system has already been introduced at the undergraduate level, the rolling out of the system at the HS level would ease the transition of students from school to university.
He said the education department could issue a notification on splitting the Class XI and HS exams into four semesters.
An education department official said: “Introduction of MCQs can help prepare students for higher level entrance exams”.
The ICSE council had conducted two exams, one at the end of each semester, for both ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) students in the academic year 2021-22, following the pandemic.
The first-semester exam had been conducted in November 2021 on a specified portion of the reduced syllabus for that period for ICSE and ISC exams for 2021-22. The second-semester exam was held in March 2022 on another specified portion.
An HS council official said a booklet with model MCQs may be developed for respective classes and circulated among students for their practice.