CBSE issues guidelines and SOPs for practicals ahead of Class 10 and 12 board exams

The Central Board of Secondary Education issued guidelines for practical exams and internal assessment on Monday ahead of the Class 10 and Class 12 board examinations. Schools have been asked to follow the standard operating procedures and upload the marks on the official website as per schedule.

Here is a detailed outline:

1. GENERAL
The Practical Examinations/Project/Internal Assessment shall be conducted strictily in accordance with the guidelines/details of Practical and Practical Syllabus of the concerned academic session given on the website of Academic Branch, CBSE, i.e., https://cbseacademic.nic.in.

The schools may check and acquaint themselves and the examiners with the maximum marks for each subject from the Curriculum Document as also the circular No. CBSE/Coord/ Marks distribution/163685/2024 dated 23/10/2024.

2. DATE FOR CONDUCT
The date for conduct of Practical Examinations/Project/lnternal Assessments shall be as follows.

Any change (If required), in the period during which the Practical Examinations/Project/lnternal Assessments shall be conducted during a particular session, will be communicated by the Board.

No extension of the dates shall be considered by the Board.

3. DATES FOR UPLOADING OF MARKS
The marks in respect of all Practical Examinations/Project/internal Assessments shall be uploaded simultaneously, starting from the dates of conduct of exams/assessments (01/01/2025 to 14/02/2025).

The uploading of marks shall be completed by last date of respective class. No extension of the dates shall be considered by the Board.

4. ENSURING ERROR FREE UPLOADING
While uploading the marks, School, the Internal Examiner and the External Examiner (as the case may be) shall ensure that correct marks are uploaded as no correction in the marks will be allowed once marks are uploaded.

Schools and Examiners shall, while awarding/uploading marks, also keep in mind maximum marks allotted for Practical/Project/Internal Assessment as per guidelines issued by the CBSE. The Practical Answer book has an additional feature where both the Internal and external examiner need to provide an undertaking that correct data has been uploaded on the portal by them.

5. REGULAR STUDENTS
Practical Examinations/Project/Internal Assessments shall be conducted for the regular students sponsored through L.0.C of Classes X and XIl, based on the eligibility/bonafide status of the student(s).

The schools shall immediately contact the regional office in case the names of any of the students are missing from the list of students in any of the subjects.

6. PRIVATE STUDENTS
The Marks of Practical Examinations/Project/lnternal Assessments marks in respect of private students shall be awarded as per the policy of the Board in accordance with the Examination Bye-laws. In case the Practical Examinations/Projectlnternal Assessments is to be conducted again that will also be done as per the policy of the Board in accordance with the Examination Bye-laws. All Private candidates be informed about the Board’s policy in this regard.

7. UNFAIR MEANS
Students found guilty of communicating or attempting to communicate with Examiners with the objective of influencing them in any way whatsoever or using any other undesirable means for taking undue advantage during exams/assessments will be deemed to have used/attempted unfair means. Examiners are required to report at once about such cases along with complete facts/papers/witnesses to the concerned Regional Office. Activity by any stakeholder if affecting the sanctity of the assessment will be considered an UFM activity and action will be taken by the Board.

8. BOARD’S RIGHTS TO CANCEL THE PRACTICAL EXAMINATION
In case, it is observed that directions of the Board have not been complied with by the schools, the Board reserve its right to cancel the Practical examination. Board can reconsider Practical examination under its own supervision.

9. WINTER BOUND SCHOOLS
The winter bound schools shall also conduct the Practical Examinations/Project Internal Assessment in accordance with these guidelines.

10. PAYMENTS
Payments to all the functionaries deployed for duties is proposed to be made through the Integrated Payment System (|PS) only unless otherwise instructed.

The schools shal maintain all records like dates of conduct examination/assessment, date wise no. of students in each batch and group, names of extenal examiners and other staff deployed for duty, examiner no./teacher-id and bank account details of all examiners/staff etc.

11. NON-DISCLOSURE OF MARKS
The marks awarded to the students in the Practical Examinations/Project/lnternal Assessment have the same sanctity as the marks scored in the Board’s Annual Theory Examinations and therefore shall not be disclosed to the students or any person under any circumstances.

CLASS-X: SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

12. APPOINTMENT OF EXTERNAL EXAMINER
No external examiner will be appointed by the Board for class-X.

13. ANSWER BOOK FOR PRACTICALS
Practical answer books will not be supplied by the Board for class-X, the school shall make al arrangements themselves. After conduct of Practical/Project/nternal Assessment the answer books of the students are not required to be sent to the Regional Office.

CLASS-XIl: SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

14. APPOINTMENT OF EXTERNAL EXAMINERS BY THE BOARD
The Board will appoint External Examiners in each school for conducting Practical Examinations and Project Assessments in the specified subjects.

The school authorities are not authorised to make alternate arrangement of external examiner for conduct of practical examination/project assessment at local level. Practical examination can only be conducted by an external examiner appointed by the Board.

All matters of any delay in conduct of practical examination due to non-availability/ refusal/non-reporting etc. shall be reported to Regional Office concerned immediately for further necessary directions from the Regional Office for appointment of new examiner.

15. APPOINTMENT OF OBSERVERS BY THE BOARD
The Board may appoint Observers in the schools to oversee the conduct of Practical Examinations and Project Assessments and ensure fair conduct of examinations/assessment. The schools shall get in touch with concerned Regional Office for obtaining the list of Observers.

16. ENSURING PRESENCEIAVAILABLITY OF EXTERNAL EXAMINERS
The school shall ensure presence/availability of External Examiners and Observers on all days of conduct of Practical Examinations/Project Assessments strictly as nor the provision of appointment of external examiner by the Board.

17. APPOINTMENT OF INTERNAL EXAMINER
There will be an External Examiner as well as an Internal Examiner, as per the policy for Practical Examinations/Project Assessment. The school shall appoint an Internal Examiner of adequate experience and expertise in all such subjects. An order shall be issued by the School Principal for appointment of Internal Examiner with complete details of examiner and his duties and responsibilities.

18. INSPECTION OF LABORATORY AND EQUIPMENT BY EXTERNAL EXAMINER
Principal/Head of the School is required to get laboratory ready for the Practical examinations. The External Examiners shall visit the laboratory of the school at least one day prior to the day of conduct of examination/assessment to ensure availability of proper and adequate Apparatus/Equipment/Chemicals/other required material and all other arrangements etc.

In case of any shortcoming, the same should be brought to the personal notice of the Principal/Head of the School who shall be responsible for making arrangements and making up for the shortcomings such reported.

19. BATCH AND GROUP SIZE
The school will be able to create batches of 30 students each in every subject. Accordingly, the schools shall conduct the practical/project assessment of 30 students of each batch together for better management of practical/project assessment and uploading of marks.

Batches shall only be created after receipt of the details of external examiners from CBSE that too after confirming from the external examiner and observer (if appointed by the Board) about his availability for conduct of practical/project assessment. The details of external examiners will be locked in the system and examination/assessment will be required to be conducted by these examiners only.

The schools may consider splitting the groupbatch of students in sub groups of 15 students each. First sub group of 15 students may attend the lab work while the other is doing pen and paper work and vice-versa but the practical/project assessment of the complete batch/group of 30 students shall be completed together on the same day and marks be also uploaded of the complete batch/group together.

20. NAME AND EXAMINER NUMBER OF THE PRACTICAL EXAMINERS
The school shal use and upload the correct name of the examinerS which shall be same as is existing in the bank account of the examiner.

Similarly, the school shall ensure that the unique teacher-id allotted in the OASIS is used as examiner number.

The Regional Ofices shall use the OASIS allotted teacher-id is used as examiner number while allotting the duties. The examiner number shall be clearly mentioned in all the communications regarding practical examiner duties with the schools as well as the examiners.

21. CONDUCT OF EXAMINATIONIASSESSMENT IN SESSIONS
To ensure fair and proper assessment, Practical Examinations/Project Assessment should invariably be conducted in two or three sessions in a day if the number of students is more than 30. It may be noted that since the size of batch/group is 30, therefore examination/assessment of each batch/group shall be conducted in one session together.

In case of Fine Arts, examination/assessment shall invariably be conducted in two sessions in respect of each student.

22. UPLOADING OF PHOTOGRAPHS THROUGH APP-LINK
The schools are required to upload the photographs of examination/assessment.
For this purpose, an App-link will be provided to the schools for uploading 01 group photograph of each batch during the practical examination. Group Photo should consist of all the students of that batch/group, External examiner, Internal examiner and Observer. All faces should be clearly visible in the photograph.

The photograph shall be taken in the laboratory where practical examinations will be conducted and laboratory should be clearly seen in the photograph.

The software will ensure that photographs uploaded are geotagged and time tagged; some other information such as batch number, total batches, date and time etc will also be required to be uploaded on the app/link.

23. ATTENDANCE SHEETS
Attendance Sheets of the students appearing in practical examination must be carefully filled in the proforma which will be provided to each school by the concerned Regional Office.

24. RESCHEDULING OF PRACTICAL OF ABSENT STUDENTS
All students are required to appear in the Practical Examination/Project Assessment during the given schedule only. The Practical Examination/Project Assessment of a student who may be absent on the day of examination due to any reason, shall also be re-scheduled during the notified dates only. No request for special permission beyond the schedule shall be entertained by the Board.

In case any student is absent in the Practical Examination/Project/Internal Assessment etc. for the current session, the student is to be marked “Absent” in the online system. In cases, where a student is absent on the day of examination, due to any reason and his Practical Examination/Project Assessment is to be conducted at a different date, he shall be marked as “Re-scheduled” instead of “Absent”. The school will be allowed to re-conduct the Practical Examination/Project Assessment in respect of students marked as “Re-scheduled” during the above schedule only.

25. OTHER MATERIAL
The format of the following material/documents will be provided in the link of school log-in for download and for handing over to the concerned External examiner on his/her arrival:
a) Manual Award List for use of any left out subject exam.
b) Sample Envelope for sending Award List by External Examiners.

26. ANSWER BOOK FOR PRACTICAL
It shall be ensured that the practical answer book supplied by the Regional Offices is used in practical examination. It is to be ensured that examiner completes all entries in practical answer books carefully and correctly. The Practical Answer book has an additional feature where both the Internal and external examiner need to provide an undertaking that correct data has been uploaded on the portal by them.

27. RELIEVING OF TEACHERS FOR DUTY
Apart from conducting the Practical Examination/Project Assessments of the students, every school shall also ensure relieving of their PGT’s deputed by the Board for conduct of Practical Examination/Project Assessment in other schools to ensure that the whole process of practical examination is completed within the stipulated time. Non relieving of the teachers appointed as examiners will be viewed seriously and shall attract invocation of penalty provisions against the erring schools as per Affiliation and Examination Bye-Laws.