Kolkata: The West Bengal board has decided to shift the start time of the upcoming class 10 and 12 examinations in February two hours earlier, as announced by officials on Thursday.


Following the adjustment, the exams will now commence at 9:45 am instead of the usual 11:45 am and will conclude at 1 pm instead of the previous 3 pm, as reported by news agency PTI. These changes apply to exams conducted at locations other than the students' homes, as clarified by Ramanuj Ganguly, President of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, during a press conference.


The class 12 exams will be also conducted between 9:45 am and 1 pm, West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education President Chiranjib Bhattacharya said.














The Madhyamik (class 10) exams are scheduled to take place from February 2 to 12, with the HS examinations following from February 16 to 29.


Although no specific reason was provided for the timing adjustment, an education department official mentioned that the decision was made after discussions between the state secretariat Nabanna and the concerned boards.














"If students can attend classes from 10:30 am in the day, there has to be parity between exam time and school time," he said.


Teachers’ organisations resented the new timing.


"This decision has no logic. In rural areas, many students come to exam centres from far away places. It will put them in lots of difficulties. Earlier, they changed the dates of the Madhyamik exams from usual March to February arbitrarily," said Nabakumar Karmakar, spokesperson of Paschim Banga Shikshak Samiti, a teachers' body of the state.


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He, however, said there could be some justification for holding HS exams early as two papers on the same subject are conducted on a single day.


While 9.23 lakh candidates will appear for the Madhyamik examinations, eight lakh higher secondary candidates will write their papers.


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