New Delhi: The first term board exams for class 10 will begin from November 30, while the exams for class 12 is scheduled from December 1, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced on Monday.
According to examination controller Sanyam Bhardwaj, the announced date sheet is for major subjects while the schedule for minor subjects will be sent to schools separately.
The exams for minor subjects for classes 10 and 12 will begin from November 17 and November 16 respectively. Subjects like Hindi, maths, science and English come under the major section while languages like Tamil, Malayalam and subjects like music come under the minor section.
Bifurcating the academic session, holding two term-end exams and rationalising the syllabus were part of the special assessment scheme for class 10 and 12 CBSE board exams for 2021-22, which were announced in July in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CBSE is offering 114 subjects in class 12 and 75 subjects in class 10. Out of these 19 are major subjects in class 12 and nine in class 10.
For class 10, the first exam for major subjects is scheduled on November 30 (social science) followed by science on December 2, home science on December 3, mathematics standard and mathematics basic on December 4, computer application on December 8, Hindi courses A and B on December 9 and English on December 11.
According to the class 12 exam schedule, first exam will be of sociology (December 1) followed by English core on December 3, mathematics on December 6, physical education on December 7, business studies on December 8, geography on December 9 and physics on December 10. Psychology exam will be held on December 11, accountancy on December 13, chemistry on December 14, economics on December 15, Hindi core and elective on December 16, political science on December 17, biology on December 18, history on December 20, informatics practices and computer science on December 21 and home science on December 22.
The CBSE had last week said that the first-term board examinations for classes 10 and 12 will be conducted offline in November-December.
"The exams will be objective and the duration of the tests will be 90 minutes. The exams will start from 11.30 am instead of 10.30 am in view of the winter season. The exams for the minor subjects will be conducted by schools though the question paper will be provided by the board. All these minor subjects are not offered by all schools," Bhardwaj said.
"All schools will be sanitised before exam and effort will be made that students are not going far away. A large number of schools will be fixed as self centre only keeping in view the distance and the comfort. Efforts are to ensure there is minimum discomfort to parents and students," he added.
The plans by the board to split the session into two terms had come against the backdrop of the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of board exams for some subjects last year and a complete cancellation of the exams this year. The result was then announced on basis of alternative assessment schemes developed by the board.
"After the conduct of the term-1 exams, the results in the form of the marks scored will be declared. No student will be placed in the pass, compartment and essential repeat categories after the first term. The final results will be announced after the first and the second-term examinations," Bhardwaj said.
The examination controller further added that the second-term examination would be conducted in March-April, 2022 and whether it will be objective or subjective-type will depend on the Covid situation in the country.