Mita Mukherjee
The West Bengal state board class X exam (Madhyamik) of 2022 will start on March 7 and Class XII (Uccha Madhyamik) on April 2, officials of the two-state boards announced on Monday.
Both the exams will be conducted in offline mode maintaining all Covid-19 safety protocols, the officials said. Candidates will have to attend the exam centres to write the tests.
The 2022 Madhyamik examination will end on March 16. The Uchha Madhyamik will continue till April 20.
Unlike the previous years, the class XII exam will be conducted at home centres. Students will have to write the tests sitting in their own schools. Till 2019 when the examinations were conducted for the last time students were allotted seats at other institutions for writing the exam.
The 2022 class XII exam will be held at home centres to ensure that candidates do not have to travel a longer distance to reach the examination venues. The decision has been taken considering students’ safety in the Covid-19 situation, Chiranjib Bhattacharya, president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education said.
“ The Class XII exam will be conducted at all the 6723 Uchha Madhyamik schools in the state. In 2019 the exam was conducted in around 2300 schools. Since the number of exam venues will be increased by nearly three times than in 2019, social distancing and other Covid-19 safety protocols can be maintained in a better manner,” Bhattacharya said.
The Class X board exam, however, like previous years will be held at away centres. Students will be allotted seats in other schools for writing the exam. The Madhyamik will be conducted in 9691 centres this time which is three times higher than in 2019.
Kalyanmoy Ganguly, president of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, the Madhyamik cannot be held in home centres because a large number of Madhyamik schools do not have the infrastructure to conduct the exams.
The Class X and XII pre-board exams for screening the candidates for appearing in the final board exams will have to be conducted by the respective schools. The individual schools can make the decision on whether the test will be conducted in online or offline mode.
In 2021 the X and XII board exams were not conducted because of the pandemic and students were assessed on the basis of internal assessment and marks obtained in the previous exams.
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