West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu Addresses Lack of Communication on Common Board Proposal

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu stated on Thursday that he has not received any official communication from the Union Ministry of Education regarding a recommendation for seven states to adopt a unified board for classes 10 and 12. This suggestion came after an analysis showed these states accounted for 66% of student failures last year.

Basu emphasised that students under West Bengal's educational boards consistently achieve high pass rates in their class 10 and 12 examinations. "We are yet to hear anything about this from the Centre. However, whatever I read in the press, the issue is not relevant to our state. Except for the COVID period, the pass percentage of candidates appearing in both secondary and higher secondary exams in West Bengal has been high," he said.

Common Board Proposal

The Ministry of Education's proposal targets Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Kerala, Manipur, Odisha, Telangana, and West Bengal. These states were identified as having significant student failure rates. The School Education Department's analysis led to this recommendation. The aim is to improve academic outcomes by standardising the examination process across these regions.

In West Bengal, the Madhyamik examination for class 10 is conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. Meanwhile, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education oversees the class 12 final exams. This year, 86.56% of 9,69,425 candidates passed the Madhyamik exam. Additionally, 90.79% of 4,82,948 candidates succeeded in their class 12 exams.

Current Examination Boards

India has a total of 66 school examination boards. These include three national-level boards and 63 state-level boards—54 regular and 12 open boards. Among these, the top 33 boards cover 97% of students nationwide. The remaining boards cater to just 3% of students.

School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar stated, "Common board for classes 10 and 12 is the way forward for ease of schooling. Not having a common board leads to poor academic outcomes. We have recommended these states to adopt a common board."

The proposal aims to streamline education standards across different states. By adopting a common board system, it is believed that educational consistency and quality can be enhanced nationwide.

With inputs from PTI