The CBSE on Monday announced that the academic session 2021-22 of Class X and Class XII will be made into two terms with a 50 per cent syllabus in each term. Accordingly, the first-semester exam will be conducted during November-December and the next one will be held in March-April.

"Semester system at the school level will release the stress of both teachers and students as their burden to cover full portions will be drastically reduced. Therefore, it can be introduced in the State board schools also", Tamil Nadu Teachers Association President P K Ilamaran said.

Pointing out that if the semester system was introduced in the schools, teachers will cover portions on time, he said, "many teachers tend to keep the portions pending till the nearing of annual exams".

Hailing the CBSE's decision, KR Nandhakumar, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Private Nursery, Primary, Matriculation, Higher Secondary, and CBSE Schools Association, said "apart from reducing the stress of the students and teachers when semester system was introduced in the schools, the performance of the students in the exams will be better as they need to cover only 50% of portion in each exam session".

"Teachers could judge the student's performance in the first-semester exam itself and it paves the way to concentrate more on poor performing students to do better in the next exam", Nandhakumar, who is also a principal of a private school in the city, added.

R C Saraswathi, the national award-winning teacher and principal of government girls higher secondary school at Ashok Nagar in the city too welcome the CBSE decision and said "the semester system will be very useful especially during a pandemic situation like this and portions would be less if the exams were conducted in two terms".

However, Tamil Nadu Parents-Teachers Welfare Association president S Arumainathan said if the semester system introduced for board exam students, both State and the Central government should ensure that there should not be any type of entrance exams for getting admissions to higher educational institutions.

"If there was a semester system at the school level, students always tend to forget whatever portions and subjects they had covered in first exams and try to concentrate only be on the final exam. Therefore, the performance of the students in the entrance exam for higher studies will be poor as the questions for the entrance exams will be asked from whole portions of Class XII".