New Delhi: More than 16 lakh students will be appearing for the Board exams this year starting Wednesday. Physics is the first paper for class XII while class X students will sit for their first main paper, Social Science, on March 5. The number of students taking the Boards is the highest-ever, up by 8.72% from last year. In Delhi alone, a total of 2,47,291 students will sit for class X exams and 1,99,951 students for class XII exams at 572 centres across the city.

Over 9 lakh students will take the last-ever Board exams in class X before they become optional from the next session. For the first time, however, CBSE is bringing in the grading system in place of marks. So from now, the mark sheets of class X students will only show grades scored on a nine-point scale and not the aggregate percentage.

According to CBSE, such a measure will help bring down the cut-throat competition. In addition to relieving the stress on class X students, CBSE has made sure that nobody fails the Boards this time. CBSE is discontinuing the practice of declaring compartment or fail in class X from this year. Instead, students who get an E1 or E2 grade in a subject will get subsequent five attempts to improve their performance to get a qualifying certificate.

There’s something new in class XII exams as well. This year, class XII students would appear for the first time in subjects such as graphics design and heritage crafts. However, unlike class X, class XII students will still get marks and not grades. The number of differently-abled students taking the exams has dipped as compared to last year. In class X the number of registered students in special category has come down to 1,891 from 2,228 in 2009 and for class XII, the number of such candidates has come down to 1,306 from 1,707.

But in the city, the number of differently-abled candidates, including the visually impaired, hearing impaired, spastics, and dyslexics, has gone up. This year, 810 students will take class X Boards in the special category as against 774 in 2009 while 649 class XII students will take the Boards as compared to 564 last year. CBSE has asked the centre superintendents to arrange the seats for the differently-abled candidates only on the ground floor as far as possible. As per a new rule, such candidates are also entitled to an extra time of one hour for a three-hour paper, 50 minutes for a paper that is two-and-a-half-hour long. For a paper with the allowed duration of two hours, candidates in a special category will get 40 minutes and for a one-and-a-half-hour paper they will get 30 minutes. Class X will be through with the exams on March 31 while class XII Boards will be over by April 6.

source: TOI