The Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) in an official statement said that the academic session 2021-22 will be divided into 2 terms. The board will conduct exams at the end of each term. The exams will be conducted on the basis of bifurcated syllabus.

The board exams for classes 10 and 12 will have 2 terms with 50 percent syllabus in each. Internal assessments will get more weightage for this session. The term exams to be called as Term-I and Term-II will be of 90 minutes duration. Marks of both terms will be contributed in the final overall score of the students with Term-I to be held in November-December in flexible schedule and Term-II in March-April. The exams will be conducted under the supervision of external center superintendents and observers appointed by CBSE. 

The pattern of the exams has also been changed. Term-I will have MCQs including case-based MCQs and assertion -reasoning type MCQs. CBSE also said that if the situation is not conducive in March 2022, Term-II will be of 2 hours held by the schools.  

The syllabus for academic session will be divided into 2 parts and 50 % syllabus will be covered in each term. Subject experts and the Board will conduct examinations at the end of each term on the basis of the bifurcated syllabus. 

Internal assessment will get a huge credit and data collection will begin from the very start of the academic session. The schools will create a student profile for all assessments undertaken for the entire session. In case the pandemic situation does not improve, the internal assessments will prove to be very handy.

There will be 3 periodic tests for classes 9th and 10th. Three periodic tests, student enrichment, portfolio, and practical work, speaking listening activities will be conducted. For 11th and 12th the internal assessment will include unit tests at end of every topic, exploratory activities, practicals, and projects.

Guidelines with relevant details for internal assessments will be released by the Board. Additional resources including sample assessments, question banks, teacher training etc. for reliable and valid internal assessments will be provided by the Board.

Online mode of classes to continue for new sessions till the authorities permit off-line mode of classes. CBSE in an official statement said that the new criteria is “in line with the Board’s continued focus on assessing stipulated learning outcomes by making the examinations competencies and core concepts based, student-centric, transparent, technology-driven, and having advance provision of alternatives for different future scenarios".

The CBSE also said that it will assess and conduct the examinations considering the situation at that time. For the marking policy, the board said that moderation policy will be announced for a fair distribution of marks.

(with inputs from ndtv and news18)