Semester system in Higher Secondary from next year
After the final approval of the government, the semester system will be started at the higher secondary level from the next academic year. In this regard, the state wants to move forward in coordination with various all-India boards and the national education policy. Some revisions of the National Education Policy have been made by the Special Committee appointed by the Education Department of the State Government. It has been submitted to the government in draft form. That is why this recommendation has been made to change the examination system. According to sources, the Higher Secondary Education Council is also ready in this regard. If everything goes well, in 2023, the students of class 11 will take the exam in the semester system.Semester system was introduced in higher education several years ago. The National Education Policy recommends introduction of semester system across secondary and higher secondary levels. But the state government wants to conduct secondary examination separately. A special committee was tasked with formulating the state-wise policy on the outline of the National Education Policy 2020. Internationally renowned writer and educationist Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak is leading that committee. The draft report submitted by the said committee is about the semester. Several structural changes are coming in higher education in line with the National Education Policy. The committee felt that if the students are familiar with the semester system at the school level, it will help them to adapt to higher education. For the same reason, the OMR sheet may also be introduced in some subjects in higher secondary, according to sources in the parliament.All 2020 board exams had to be canceled due to Corona. The mark sheet was published with the average marks of the previous examination. A lot of dissatisfaction was also created about it. Learning from that experience, CBSE and CISCE announced to conduct the final examination in semester system in the academic year 2021-22. This system is introduced in case an exam is cancelled due to any reason so that the result can be declared by looking at the marks of another exam. But this time it is possible to take both exams. The result of the examination is published by adding the two marks. At that time the Higher Secondary Education Council also wanted to conduct the examination in two parts. Due to financial and administrative reasons, the green signal was not given in the end. Informed circles think that it is only a matter of time before this test system is finally launched.However, there are several opinions against this method. Schools are already having trouble completing the syllabus due to vacations. It is feared that if the examination is conducted every six months in the semester system, it will become more difficult to complete the syllabus. Exam taking and preparation will also take time. In that case, either the syllabus should be reduced, or leave. A large section of academics are not in favor of reducing the syllabus. Therefore, experts believe that ‘time management’ is one of the challenges in the new system.
