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The West Bengal government has decided to withdraw from conducting Class XI examinations and hand over the responsibility to the schools, a move that many teachers say would make the evaluation less serious.
An order to this effect was issued on May 24. From 2009, when the syllabus of schools affiliated with the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education was bifurcated, Class XI examinations were being conducted by the Council.
“Annual examination (theory and practical) at the end of Class XI will be conducted by the respective institutions on the basis of the syllabus to be covered in Class XI. The question papers will be prepared by the institutions following the subject-wise question pattern,” the Council order said.
“The schedule will be framed up by the respective institutions but the examination should be conducted within the academic session. Council will not provide blank answer scripts. The institutions will evaluate the answer scripts and will upload the marks on the online portal within the date, as would be specified by the Council,” it said.
“Quite an implication”
However, many teachers are of the opinion that both the schools and the students would not take Class XI examinations seriously after this.
“I think it is all about cost-cutting. Till date, since the bifurcation of the syllabus (in 2009), Class XI annual exams were conducted by the Council— the questions were set by them, the schedule for both theory and practical exams was set by them, the answer scripts were provided by them. The schools only had to correct the answer scripts and submit the marks to the Council. But they now want the schools to do everything on their own, so that the onus is no longer on them and all they will be concerned with is the Higher Secondary board exams,” the headmistress of a Kolkata-based school said, asking not to be named.
“Now the schools will have more freedom in setting the question papers and the schedule, but on the flip side, the question papers will no longer be uniform and schools will perhaps not always complete the syllabus because they will have the option to curtail the same and hold the annual exams on a truncated syllabus as per their convenience,” the headmistress added.
Another teacher agreed that the decision would have “quite an implication” for both schools and students. “Students anyway neglect the Class XI syllabus knowing it will not impact their Higher Secondary scores and now with this new directive, schools won’t care too,” the teacher said.
Until 2009, the Higher Secondary examination used to cover the syllabi of both Class XI and Class XII. Following the bifurcation, the board examination will be held only on the syllabus for Class XII.
“Students anyway neglect the Class XI syllabus knowing it will not impact their Higher Secondary scores and now with this new directive, schools won’t care too”Teacher