Thiruvananthapuram: A SAY (Save a Year) exam will be conducted from April 25 to 28 for Class 8 students in schools following the Kerala syllabus. This is part of implementing the ‘minimum marks promotion’ system, under which Class 8 students must score at least 30% in all subjects to be promoted to Class 9.

A department-level meeting with teachers’ organisations, presided over by State Education Minister V Sivankutty, finalised the details of the exam. Authorities will complete the evaluation of the Class 8 annual exams by the first week of April and identify the students who will need to take the SAY exam.

This year, the 30% minimum mark requirement for passing the annual exam is being introduced for Class 8 students. It will also be implemented in Classes 9 and 10 starting the next academic year.

Meanwhile, the meeting decided that the Class 8 evaluation should be completed before April 4. After that, a list of students who scored below 30% will be prepared. On April 5, a meeting of the school resource group will be convened, where the headmaster will prepare the syllabus for the special classes to be offered to these students before they take the SAY exam.

The parents of the students on the list will be informed about the special classes, which are scheduled from April 8 to 24 from 9.30 am. to 12.30 pm. After the SAY exam, which will take place from April 25 to 28, the results will be announced on April 30.

During the meeting, teachers' representatives informed the minister that an adequate number of teachers might not be available to conduct the special classes, as SSLC valuation is also taking place in April. In response, the minister suggested that the services of retired teachers and BRC (Block Resource Centre) trainers could be utilised.

The meeting also decided to conduct the vacation training classes for teachers in a single batch from May 19 to 23.