Be lenient, examiners urged: HS council advices full marks for deserving answers in language papers
Telegraph | 26 February 2026
The examiners who will check the Higher Secondary language papers (English and Bengali) have been urged “not to be overtly conservative” while awarding marks.
“Examiners are requested not to be overtly conservative in awarding marks. Award full marks to all deserving answers,” the head examiners have stated in their instructions to the examiners.
The students are writing their fourth-semester papers. The exams started on February 12 and will end on February 27.
Council president Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said that how scripts will be assessed is decided by the subject experts. The council has no role in it.
“This year, the council intervened in the case of the math paper on February 19, where some out-of-syllabus questions had appeared. The council concluded that the examinees will be given full marks for attempting those questions,” he said.
Many teachers stated that after the Class XII third-semester exam results were published in November, showing a decline in the number of top scorers, examiners have been requested not to be overly conservative.
Out of 6,05,274 students who passed, only 0.48% secured the highest “O” grade (90-100 marks).
In comparison, 1.07% of the 4.3 lakh successful candidates in the last HS exam held under the old annual system had achieved the highest grade.
“This (the highest grade) percentage should have gone up,” the council president had said in November.
The grade card of the segmented HS will be drawn based on combining the performances in the third and fourth semesters.
Swapan Mandal, a teacher from at Narikeldanga High School, said the council is literally asking the examiners to be lenient in awarding marks because it knows otherwise the students will struggle to get admitted to colleges.
“This leniency will, however, weaken the base of students and they will struggle at the graduation level,” said Mandal.
Students are tested on short and descriptive questions in the fourth semester.
The third and fourth semesters are conducted by the council, while schools hold the first and second semesters.
A headmaster stated that the council had tweaked the question pattern to encourage students to score more, and now it is changing the evaluation pattern.
According to the new pattern, some sections which the council initially thought would have three questions will now have four. A candidate who was earlier required to pick two questions from a set of three will now be required to pick two questions from a set of four.
“A student may not have completed the syllabus. For them, increasing the number of questions will help identify a question of preference. This will lead to a better performance,” council secretary Priyadarshini Mallick told Metro on February 4.
“A change in question pattern and a flexible evaluation approach may lead to a surge in top scorers,” a teacher said.