New Delhi, June 28: The majority of the country’s school boards today agreed to follow a uniform question format in their science and mathematics papers from 2014-15 to try and bridge the differences between their examination systems.

The boards had met to discuss operational issues arising out of the decision to restrict eligibility for IIT admission to the top 20 percentile from each board, and give weightage to board marks for admission to all other centrally funded tech institutes.

These changes have made board scores more important than before for aspiring engineers and created a necessity to achieve some uniformity among boards’ examination and evaluation systems.

The meeting was called by the Council of Boards of School Education in India (COBSE), a body that coordinates with the boards on matters of common interest, and was attended by 20 of the country’s 29 school boards.

Most of the boards that turned up, including Bengal’s higher secondary council, agreed to adopt the uniform format.

This means that all these boards will ask a specific number of objective type, subjective type or analytical questions in their papers, although the content of the questions may be different for the time being. Now, the format varies from board to board.

“The uniform question format in science and mathematics is the first step towards bridging the gap between boards. The next step will be to see whether there can be a common question bank for the boards,” a COBSE official said. The views of the absentee boards will be ascertained soon.

The COBSE will prepare a model question pattern that is to be followed for Class XI papers from next year and the board exams from 2014-15.

The COBSE and the NCERT have already developed a common curriculum for mathematics and science, and almost all the boards have implemented it.

All the boards have agreed to declare their results before June 10 every year so that the tech colleges can get the percentile rankings of students or work out the weightages in time. The boards will complete revaluation and verification, if any student applies for it, within June 30.

Students who have cleared Class XII in 2012 but want to improve their scores can do so. The boards have been asked to let such students take the exam again next year.

The meeting decided that within the next 10 days, the COBSE website will post the cut-off scores for the top 20 percentile from each board this year. This will allow each student to learn if he or she is eligible for IIT admission.