West Bengal: Schools rush to meet June 23 deadline for XI marks

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education has directed school principals to submit hard copies of marks of Class XI annual exams held in 2020 to its regional offices within June 23 so that the computation of the final scores of Class XII students can start.
After the board exams were cancelled this year owing to the pandemic, the council came up with a formula to compute Class XII final scores by giving 40% weightage to four best scores out of seven theory papers in their Madhyamik, and 60% weightage to the theory paper scores of their Class XI school annual exams, along with the marks scored in practicals for science subjects or projects for non-lab subjects.
If a school fails to submit the earlier scores within the deadline, the students will be “marked absent” and the HS examination 2021 result will not be published, the institutes have been told. This directive has led to a scramble among school heads to contact the respective subject teachers and other staff members who handle storing of registers with examination marks so that the data can be compiled and delivered to the council on time. The council aims to publish the HS results by July.
“To deliver the hard copies to the regional office on June 23, we must be ready with everything by June 22. So, effectively we are getting only Monday and Tuesday to complete this work, which is a rather short period of time to compile all the marks carefully and arrange them in order,” said Saugata Basu, general secretary of the West Bengal Government Teachers’ Association.
“Due to the prevailing restrictions for the pandemic, trains, buses and other modes of public transport have not been operating. How are school employees expected to reach the campuses to complete the work? A majority of teaching and non-teaching staff have not even received their vaccines.”
The council is aiming to publish the result by July but before that, the marks will have to be computed according to the new assessment criteria announced on Friday, another teacher said.
“The government does not want the results to be delayed as a later date might be a hurdle for students from applying abroad or taking competitive examinations,” said an official of the council.