Jhajjar, April 8
With a view to improving the quality of education in the state, the Secondary Education Department has introduced a series of reformative changes in the annual school calendar and the examination pattern from the ensuing academic session. The Directorate of Secondary Education at Chandigarh issued a letter to its subsidiaries and offices concerned, including Director,
NCERT at Gurgaon, District Education and Primary Education Officers and the Secretary of Haryana School Education Board, Bhiwani, to this effect last month. To bring in “qualitative reforms” in school education, the department has now fixed the annual school calendar from May 1 to April 30, thus, cutting short the academic session by one month.
The department has introduced major changes in the examination pattern of all classes. The new Unit Test System (UTS) has been introduced to “keep consistency in the studies”. The final results of the students will be prepared on the basis of 30 per cent marks gained in the unit tests, 20 per cent marks of the half-yearly exams and 50 per cent marks of the annual examinations.
The department said that such an integrated system of examination had been introduced so that the students could take interest in studies the whole year consistently. The unit tests would be held three times and half-yearly exams would be held in the third week of December. The final results would be announced on April 30.
The letter of the Directorate of Secondary Education also contains the details of changes in the different activities to be carried out by the schools. The time of the sports activities has also been confined up to the month of October so that the students could concentrate on the studies in the second half of the session. It has also stressed on the co-curricular activities and directed that there should be a separate calendar of such activities.
The department has also directed to complete the examinations to the classes VI, VII, IX, and XI between April 1 and April 20 and admissions would be started from May 1 with provisional admissions for the IX and XI classes. Summer vacations would be from May 20 to June 30 and the winter break from December 20 to December 31. The circular has directed that the modified calendar should be implemented with effect from May 1.
