The state higher secondary examinations will be held at “away centres” this year, like they used to be before the pandemic.
HS 2023 will start on March 14 and end on March 27. The Class XI annual exams will be held during the same period.
In guidelines issued earlier last month, the state higher secondary council has told candidates to follow physical distancing and other Covid protocols.
The school-leaving exams were held in 2020 and not in 2021 because of Covid. The exams were held last year, but in a break from the practice followed till 2019, the examinees wrote the papers in their respective schools, or home centres.
The home-centre rule, introduced to ensure that students write the papers in a familiar setting amid the pandemic, triggered questions about the fairness of the exams.
The guidelines also say that instead of two sections — Part-A and Part-B —the question papers this year will have only one section.
“Earlier, the question paper was split into two parts and the two sections were distributed separately. Separate answer sheets were given for each part,” said an official of the HS council.
“This year the council has notified that only one answer sheet will be provided for each question paper and students will not be allowed to write answers on the question paper.”
Earlier, Part-B contained multiple-choice questions (MCQ) and had a question-cum-answer booklet format.
“MCQ answers were written on the question paper. At the end of a day’s test, students had to tie the answer sheet of Part-A and MCQ booklet and submit them to the invigilators. In the new system, the candidates can take home the multiple-choice questions along with the subjective questions,” said a council official.
Council secretary Tapas Chatterjee said that under the earlier system, the examinees would at times make mistakes while stitching the answer sheet and the MCQ booklet and that would lead to complications.
“The examiners would face trouble during evaluation because of this,” he said.
In the regulations sent to invigilators and venue supervisors, the council has said: “Students of each school write the higher secondary exams at another school.”
The Delhi boards deploy invigilators from other schools when students write exams at home centres, but the Bengal HS council made no such effort last year.
Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya, president of the state HS council, said on Monday: “Last year, an exception was made so the examinees could remain stress-free and write their exams in an environment they are familiar with. This year, we are shifting back to the usual practice of holding exams at away centres.”