New Delhi, March 6 -- The School Education department gave the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) permission to introduce a semester system at the Higher Secondary level from academic session 2024-25 for class XI and for class XII from 2025-26 academic session.
"Every higher education institution follows the semester system. Hence, its introduction in class XI and XII will help the students in smooth migration. Under this system, they will not be evaluated based on one particular examination. Moreover, this system is more scientific," Council president Chiranjib Bhattacharjee told Millennium Post. According to a Council official, the continuous evaluation system will help reduce the load of students as their final marks will not be dependent on one particular examination. If a student, due to any circumstance, is unable to perform well in one examination, they will be given the opportunity under semester system to better their performance. The Gazette notification on State Education Policy (SEP) 2023 had also stated that Council may consider introducing a semester system in Class XI and XII as it will ease the transition from school to university in a phased manner. The details with regards to syllabus and semester-wise implementation strategy will soon be uploaded by the Council. Earlier, a source had informed that the Council is mulling over conducting workshops for schools to help them transition.
Schools in the city have welcomed this positive step by the Council. They feel that with the introduction of the semester-system, the quality of learning will improve. "This is great news for us. It's a revolutionary change. This system will allow greater freedom and improve the quality of learning for the students. One possible outcome from introducing it could be improved attendance and increased participation of students," headmaster of Jadavpur Vidyapith Partha Pratim Baidya said. The Council is also planning to bring a change in the syllabus to make it contemporary and properly equip the students of the state so that they fare well in the competitive examinations. The syllabus is being modified after more than a decade, the last change was ushered in 2012-13 after the Trinamool Congress government had come to power for the first
time in 2011.
The Cow uncil president had earlier said that the syllabus was not modified since then and the work on the same was delayed due to Covid. If they get approval by the School Education department, they are planning to introduce it in the 2024-25 academic year. They had wished to implement the semester-wise
system simultaneously.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.