More exams for UP Board students

Lucknow, July 16 (IANS) The students of Classes 9 to 12 in Uttar Pradesh government schools will take more tests in the coming session.

The state government has decided to hold quarterly tests, apart from monthly and half-yearly examinations in schools recognised by the UP Secondary Education Board.

The quarterly test, as per the 2021-22 academic calendar, is scheduled for the second half of September.

Meanwhile, for the first time, the secondary education department has asked all schools to feed marks obtained by students in each test, right from monthly to quarterly, internal assessments, pre-boards, and annual, on the board's online portal.

The data feeding exercise will begin from Class 9 itself. Till now, no marks of Class 9 and pre-board examinations of Class 10 and 12 were kept with the schools.

The new arrangement, said officials, will help in the timely declaration of results.

"In an unprecedented situation such as Covid which forced cancellation of board exams, we have to rely on secondary data to devise a marking formula. The data collection exercise is time-taking. Now, the board will have marks of students in all examinations they appeared in," said an official.

Schools have also been instructed to upload the marks for the quarterly test by October second week. For Classes 9 and 10, internal tests of 10 marks each will be held in August, October, and January.

All schools have to upload the assessment marks by month-end.

Half-yearly examinations are to be held in mid-December, and marks are to be uploaded in January.

Pre-boards will be held in the first half of February and annual examinations for Classes 9 and 11 in the second half of February.

All these will be part of the assessment model in the absence of board examinations. However, marks for monthly tests will not be added to the final result.

Bringing in changes in examination pattern for Class 9, the board has divided the question paper into two parts: multiple-choice questions and descriptive.

Like the previous year, the board has reduced the syllabus by 30 per cent. The department has also fixed dates for completing the syllabus.