CBSE Class 10 Board Exams: The CBSE is planning to bring major reforms in the Class 10 board examination system from the academic year 2026. These reforms involve holding the exams twice a year and shortening the exam period to under two weeks, as per the Indian Express report. The main goals are to allow students to have more flexibility and to alleviate academic pressure.
CBSE Class 10 Board Exams: Introduction of biannual examination
Recently, the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had a meeting with the officials of the CBSE, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and NCERT to discuss the issue of a single annual board examination for Class 10 students. In the meeting, they proposed the biannual examination system implemented in the next academic year 2026. In this, the board will be conducting two examination windows.
This scheduling is intended to give students the option to select their ideal exam session based on their readiness. This would allow the board to hold both exam sessions and declare their results within a shorter time frame of one to two weeks for each examination period. This change is designed to reduce disruptions to the academic calendar and shorten the length of time.
Apart from providing two exam sessions, CBSE also intends to reduce the time frame for each exam session to less than two weeks. This was to avoid any disruption to the academic calendar and cut down the long period of anxiety caused by examinations. A denser timetable will also help with speedier results processing and earlier start of the next academic activities.
The Education Ministry has requested that the Board make a draft schema for how the two exams would be administered available to the public for feedback.
According to the Union government, they decided to implement this scheme only on CBSE-affiliated class 10 board schools. They will apply this scheme after reviewing the experience. “A decision on when to introduce this for Class 12 students will only be taken based on the experience of holding two exams for Class 10 students,” said a government official as reported by the Indian Express.
CBSE Class 10 Board Exams 2025
This year, the CBSE class 10 board exam is scheduled from February 15 to March 18, 2025, in a single shift. Students already sat for English and Science exams. Now, all the students are preparing for additional languages French and Sanskrit.