‘BOSE to start distributing free textbooks by November end’

Srinagar, Oct 24: Ahead of new academic session, Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (BOSE) Friday said that it will start distributing free textbooks upto 8th standard by the end of November.
The board also assured that all the deserving students will get their free textbooks by the first week of December.
Addressing a Press Conference here at Srinagar headquarters, Secretary BOSE, Ghulam Hassan Sheikh, acknowledged the delay in distributing free textbooks last year.
“It is a fact that the free textbooks couldn’t be delivered to the students on time last year. There were several reasons for that like shifting of academic session and certain other things that were there beyond the control of BOSE,” Sheikh said.
He said, “This year I assure that by the end of November, we will distribute the free textbooks to every nook and corner of Kashmir valley and by the first week of December, every student upto 8th standard will get their free textbooks.”
About doing away with board exams for 11th standard, BOSE said that it has constituted a committee to see the pros and cons of the decision. “If it suits their academic interests, we will do that but if the committee is not satisfied with this decision, we may not change it.”
“BOSE has to work hard in executing the decision of the government to shift back the academic session to November-December,” he said.
The BOSE secretary further said that the academic calendar of the ensuing academic year got affected due to the bad weather conditions.
“In this regard BOSE got many representations from almost all concerned stakeholders regarding the syllabi relaxation and the board committee accordingly announced syllabi relaxation of 15 percent for all annual regular board exams. The relaxation session is primarily for Kashmir division and winter zones of Jammu division,” Sheikh said.
Stating the breakup of 15 percent relaxation, the BOSE secretary said that there are some papers with external exams and some are some without the external exams.
“In those subjects having 100 marks, the student will have to attempt only 85 percent of the questions that will be considered an attempt of 100 marks. Of those subject papers having only 80 percent marks, the students will have to attempt only 68 percent of questions. Similarly, for those question papers having only 70 marks, the student will have to attempt only 60 percent of marks and for those papers having only 50 percent of marks, the students will have to attempt 43 percent of marks,” he said.
The BOSE secretary also said that nearly 95,000 students are enrolled to appear for 10th class exams and the board has made 994 exam centers for them, 760 centers for 82,000 students of 11th standard and 682 centers for 70,000 students of 12th class respectively.
“We have already notified the date sheet before the time. The exams of 10th standard will commence from November-03 followed by 11th standard from November-19 and for 12th standard, the exams will commence from November-08,” he said. (KNO)