NEW DELHI: CBSE will conduct class X and XII board exams from February 17 next year, officials announced Wednesday, unveiling a tentative date sheet for the country’s largest school-level examination exercise. In a significant first, the class X exam will be held twice in the same academic year.CBSE examination controller Sanyam Bhardwaj said the class X exam will be conducted first between Feb 17 and March 6, and for the second time from May 15 to June 1. The second phase will be optional, meant for students who wish to improve their performance. If a student appears in both sessions, the better of the two scores will be retained.“The second session will effectively double up as a supplementary exam. Hence, no separate supplementary exams will be conducted under this new system,” Bhardwaj said. He added that the scheme of studies, syllabus and the examination pattern will remain unchanged across both sessions.Currently, students are allowed to appear in supplementary exams to improve their results, but the two-session model marks a major shift in CBSE’s assessment approach.For class XII, the board has fixed the exam schedule from Feb 17 to April 9. Bhardwaj also detailed the evaluation timeline, noting that answer-script checking will begin roughly 10 days after the conduct of each paper and conclude within 12 days. “For example, if the class XII Physics paper is held onFeb 20, evaluation will likely start on March 3 and finish by March 15,” he explained.The scale of the exercise will be vast. Around 45 lakh candidates are expected to appear for the examinations across classes X and XII in 204 subjects, with candidates spread not only across India but also in 26 other countries.Officials said the two-session model for class X was introduced after extensive deliberations, with the aim of reducing student stress and giving them another chance to improve their performance within the same academic year. Educationists believe the move will align CBSE closer with global assessment systems that focus on flexibility and student choice.