7.45 lakh students to write West Bengal board's Class 12 exams offline

An estimated 7.45 lakh candidates will appear for the Class 12 examinations conducted by the West Bengal board, which will begin on April 2, an official said, on Thursday.

In a departure from tradition, the students will write the exams in their respective schools and not in other institutes affiliated to the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE).

WBCHSE conducts the 'Uchcha Madhyamik Pariksha', popularly known as the higher secondary (HS) examination, for Class 12 students.

“Examinees will write the papers at home centres (own schools) as certain covid protocol are to be followed in making seating arrangements for the candidates and for that more school buildings are required compared to other years,” said WBCHSE president Chiranjib Bhattacharya.

The HS exams could not be held last year due to the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and results were declared after the board worked out an evaluation method based on marks obtained by a student in previous exams.

In 2020, the HS exams had commenced before the pandemic and had to be scrapped midway forcing the WBCHSE to devise a mechanism to award marks for the cancelled tests.

This year's offline exams were initially scheduled to be held from April 2 to April 20. However, as certain dates of JEE (Main) clashed with the schedule, some of them were changed and the examinations will now continue up to April 26.