Delhi govt will pay Class X, Class XII CBSE exam fee for 3.14 lakh government school students

The Delhi government will pay the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Examination fee of Class X and Class XII students of government and government-aided schools including taken over schools and Patrachar Vidyalayas. This scheme will be implemented from the current academic session 2019-20 onwards.

The Cabinet, in its meeting on Wednesday chaired by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, approved the Department of Education’s proposal. The cabinet decision will benefit around 3.14 lakh students, at a cost of around Rs 57 crore to the government.

The assessment of students of classes III-VIII, IX and XI is being done through centralised exams conducted by the Directorate of Education (DoE) in the form of Mid Term and Annual Exams. The assessment of students of classes X and XII is being done through the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) by conducting Annual Exams in the months of March-April.

All expenditure involved in the conduct of Home Exams on items like printing of question papers, answer sheets and other related items is met by the Directorate of Education under a scheme “Examination Reforms Br for quality improvement - S&M” without passing the burden of any expenditure to students/parents. However, Examination Fees charged by the CBSE is borne by students for classes X and XII. Head of Schools collects this fee from students and remit to CBSE usually during September month.

The scope and coverage of this decision is to give complete subsidy to the students towards CBSE Board exam fees. All the students of classes X and XII studying in Government Schools, Government Aided Schools, including Taken Over schools, and Patrachar Vidyalaya of Directorate of Education, will be covered under the scheme. The Directorate of Education will remit the total Exam Fee of students of Government Schools, Government Aided Schools including Taken Over Schools and Patrachar Vidyalaya of Directorate of Education directly to CBSE through Heads of Schools concerned. This includes the fee payable towards Practical Exams for Science stream and Vocational subjects opted by students of Class XII. No fee shall be collected from students on account of CBSE Board Exam Fee.

The present proposal to bear the expenditure on account of providing complete subsidy towards CBSE Board Examination Fee of students of class X and XII of Government Schools, Government Aided Schools including Taken Over schools and Patrachar Vidyalaya for the current financial year 2019-20 is as under:

(i)    The proposed scheme is expected to benefit a total of about 3.14 lakh students for both classes X and XII taken together.

(ii)  For the students of class X(179914) and XII (133802), there are 5(Five) Compulsory Subjects and One Optional subject for which fee is to be remitted. This will be Rs. 1800 per student for class XII and 1800 per student for class X.

(iii)   In respect of 14,783 Science Stream students of class XII, there will be 3(three) Practical Exams and fee @ Rs. 150 per Practical Exam needs to be remitted.

(iv)   Students opting for Vocational Stream in class XII will have 2(Two) Practical subjects and fee @Rs. 150 per Practical Exam needs to be remitted.

(v)    For 25000 class X students with Vocational subjects, there will be one Practical Exam for which Exam Fee Rs. 150/- will be payable.

(vi)  This new initiative is expected to cost about Rs. 57.20 crore per annum