The heads ofthe government and aided higher secondary schools are worried about how they will prepare the students for the first semester exam that will start from September 13.
The state higher secondary council is yet to publish books with model questions and answers intended to make students conversant with the different types of multiple-choice questions they will face in the new semesterised plus-II course.
The head of one institution said the council had announced in May that around 50 per cent of the multiple-choice questions in theory papers in the first and third semesters would be “basic and simple”.
“Around 30 per cent of the questions will be a bit more complex and the remaining will be for the achievers. This means these 20 per cent questions will be tougher and will put to test the logical and analytical skills of students. But as the council is yet to publish the model question and answer books, we don’t howthe students could be prepared for the first semester exam barely two months away,”said Ashim Nanda, the headmaster of Dum Dum Shree Aurobindo Vidyamandira school.
The headmaster of another school said since this is a new pattern (till 2023 the council held annual exams for Class XI and Higher Secondary for Class XII), there was a need to make students acquainted with the new question-answer pattern to be followed at the semesterised plus-II model.
Chandan Maity, headmaster of Krishnachandrapur High School in Mathurapur, South 24-Parganas, said: “The model-question answer books should be published immediately, because the first semester exam will start from September 13. The students have to be acquainted with the new pattern or else they will struggle in the exam”.
A mere 1.23 per cent of the successful 6,79,784 examinees in the state higher secondary exams scored 90 per cent or above in aggregate in 2024. The results were declared on May 8.
Council president Churanjeeb Bhattacharya had then expressed hope that the situation would improve after the introduction of the semester system and said the level of performance can peak if the students can comprehend the type of questions and pick up the skills to write the answers by consulting the model-question answers.
“The model questions and answers are expected to be published this month,” Bhattacharya had told Metro on May 15.
“The books will be published by July,” Bhattacharya told Metro on Tuesday.
The council in late May had decided to upload the PDF versions of Bengali, English and Hindi textbooks as they were then yet to be printed. The government-aided schools had been told to downloadthe PDFs.
The council distributes Bengali, English and Hindi language books from the schools free of cost.
The distribution took place in late June.
