In the wake of by-polls in Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge assembly constituency, chief minister Mamata Banerjee today announced the revised Higher Secondary examination schedule.
Earlier, the class XII board examinations were scheduled to be held between 2 and 26 April. However, the by-polls were scheduled to be held on 12 April and votes will be counted on 16 April. The state government has thus revised the exam schedule. Miss Banerjee announced that the first Bengali language test will be held on 2 April. The second language test will be held on 4 April and the vocational examination on 5 April. There will be no examination from 6 to 15 April due to byelection.
According to the new schedule, the Maths exam will be held on 16 April while Economics and Computer Science will be conducted on 18 and 19 April respectively. The Commercial Law paper will be held on 20 April while the Physics, Statistics, Chemistry and Biology will be conducted on 22 April, 23 April, 26 April and 27 April respectively. The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination will be held on 30 April instead of 23 April.
Miss Banerjee said that it would have been better if the by-polls for these two seats were conducted when the elections for the five states were held. “The Election Commission does not give much importance to these area specific polls,” Miss Banerjee alleged saying that the commission should have checked the examination schedule prior to announcing the election dates.
“As the commission did not check the schedule of exam we have rescheduled the dates slightly,” she added. Initially, the Higher Secondary Examination was scheduled to end on 26 April. Now it is going to end on 27 April, Miss Banerjee added.
Earlier the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education had revised the dates for a few papers to avoid clash with JEE (Main). The HS council in a release earlier mentioned: “For the greater interest and convenience of the candidates who will be attempting JEE Main along with HS exam, the council has rescheduled dates of the examination.”