NEW DELHI: Keeping logistical challenges in mind, the union Education Ministry has asked the CBSE to work out the modalities of holding board exams for classes 10 and 12 twice a year from the 2025–26 academic session, official sources said Friday.

“We have asked the CBSE to work out the modalities of holding board exams twice a year,” the source said.

“We also plan to hold wider consultations with CBSE-affiliated school principals in May. There are 28,000 CBSE schools. We will invite 100 of them (school principals) and the rest we will ask to join online,” the official sources said.

However, the plan for introducing a semester system has been ruled out.

In the meeting with school principals, the ministry and CBSE will discuss the modalities and seek suggestions on how best to take the proposal forward, which was announced under the new curriculum framework (NCF).

“There are logistical challenges of holding the exams twice a year. It is a tiresome process and needs to be discussed. The CBSE is currently brainstorming on the logistics issue,” the officials said.

"We are exploring the idea of conducting the two editions of the board exams, at the end of the year from the 2025-26 academic session, but the modalities still need to be worked out. However, there is no plan to implement the semester system,” the source added.

Officials said they are also working out the modalities on how best to work out the academic calendar so that another set of board exams for class 12 could be conducted, without impacting the undergraduate admission schedule.

The NCF was prepared by the Union government-appointed national steering company in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and had proposed a semester system for students of classes 11 and 12. Former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan led the NCF.

It also proposed holding board exams twice a year to ensure students have enough time and opportunity to perform well. Earlier, the initial plan was to introduce biannual board exams from the 2024-25 academic session. But, it was pushed back by a year.

The Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced in March that students will get an option of appearing for class 10 and 12 board examinations twice a year from the academic session 2025-26.

Pradhan had also said that appearing for board exams twice a year won’t be mandatory for students.

The board exams for classes 10 and 12 were taken twice during the COVID-19 pandemic as a one-time measure. The old format of holding it once at the year-end was resumed this year.

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