Students to get option of appearing in 10th, 12th board exams twice from 2025-26: Dharmendra Pradhan
Raipur, Feb 19: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said students will get an option of appearing for 10th and 12th class board examinations twice a year from the academic session 2025-26.
He said one of the objectives of the new National Education Policy (NEP), unveiled in 2020, was to reduce academic stress on students.
Highlighting the concept of introducing 10 bagless days in school every year, Pradhan stressed on engaging students with art, culture and sports, among other activities.
Pradhan was speaking after launching the PM SHRI (Prime Minister Schools for Rising India) scheme in Chhattisgarh under which 211 schools of the state will be upgraded. The function was held at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay auditorium in Raipur.
Highlighting the Centre's plan under the NEP 2020, Pradhan said from the 2025-26 academic session, students will get an opportunity to appear for 10th and 12th class board exams twice.
According to the New Curriculum Framework (NCF) announced by the Ministry of Education in August last year, board examinations will be held at least twice a year to ensure that students have enough time and opportunity to perform well. They will also get the option to retain the best score.
Asking students present at the function if they were happy with the decision, the Union minister told them to keep the best marks obtained after appearing in both exams.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji's vision through the NEP is to keep students stress-free, enrich them with quality education, keep students linked with culture and prepare them for the future. This is the formula for making India a developed country by 2047," he added.
Pradhan slammed the previous Congress government in the state, saying education was not its priority, but the key sector has received utmost importance after the BJP came to power and new Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai assumed office in December last year.
In the first phase of the PM SHRI scheme, 211 schools (193 elementary level and 18 secondary ones) will be upgraded in Chhattisgarh on a 'hub and spoke' model by spending Rs 2 crore on each, the Union minister said.
Under the model, the mentor institution, called the 'hub' will be centralized and have the responsibility of guiding the mentee institution through the secondary branches the 'spoke' via services provided to the mentee for self-improvement.
As per a request made by state education minister Brijmohan Agrawal, more secondary and higher secondary schools will be covered under the scheme in its next phase, Pradhan said.
The minister said India will bid to host the 2036 Olympics Games and he expects that 10 per cent of medals for the country in the quadrennial event should come from Chhattisgarh athletes and preparation for it should start from this year itself.
Chief Minister Sai, school and higher education minister Agrawal and senior officials were present at the function.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
