The Central Board of Secondary Education Class 12 board examinations will be conducted in two shifts for the first time in order to reduce the total duration of the examination.
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The examination schedule, which includes 111 subjects, will be completed in 39 days, less than the alloted 45 days in the 2020 schedule. The afternoon shift will be held on four days, with papers in subjects that are not offered in schools abroad being conducted, said a CBSE statement.
Class 12 students will begin with the English paper on May 4 and finish on June 11 , when a slew of elective subjects ranging from Agriculture to Beauty and Wellness have been scheduled. The Class 10 schedule begins with several regional language examinations on May 4, and ends on June 7, with the Computer Applications paper. In total, the Class 10 schedule includes 75 subjects.
The examinations are being held later than usual this year, to account for the fact that schools have not been able to physically open their doors to students for most of the academic year due to the COVID-19 lockdown. It is only in the last two months that some students in Class 10 and 12 are returning to the physical classroom, after months of study at home with limited support via television and online resources.
Several concessions have been made to account for the impact of the pandemic this year. The CBSE syllabus has been slashed by 30%, and question papers are being designed so that they will allow for internal choice in a third of the questions. Additional flexibility has been allowed for the conduct of practical examinations, which can be held by individual schools and time between March 1 and the date of the theory examination in the same subject.
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In order that COVID-19 safety protocols can be followed strictly, the date sheet schedule will ensure safe limits in the total number of students at any given examination centre on any given day, said the CBSE. The afternoon shifts will use fewer examination centres, as they are mostly meant for minor electives. Staff will not be put on duty for both the morning and afternoon shifts, added the statement.
