Students appearing for the SSC public examinations in the State hereafter will attend only six papers instead of 11 starting from the current academic year, 2022-2023. The State government on Monday ordered the departments concerned to introduce a six-paper pattern in alignment with the plan to introduce the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus and prepare students for the 2024-25 CBSE public exams.
Special Chief Secretary to Govt. (School Education) B. Rajsekhar issued a government order to this effect. As per the order, the 11-paper pattern was introduced in the 2016-17 academic year under the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) pattern and a seven-paper pattern was implemented in the exams conducted in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A study by the AP State Council of Educational Research and Training found that there is no need to test the student extensively in the public examination as one undergoes four formative and two terminal tests during the year, the order said. SCERT suggested an examination with six or seven papers and in view of the government's policy of affiliating government schools with CBSE and preparing the first batch of students to write the CBSE public exam in 2024-25, the decision to introduce a six-paper pattern similar to that of CBSE has been taken.
In the new pattern, Physical Science and Biological Sciences will be in the same paper and answer scripts will be distributed separately while languages and non-languages will be assessed with one single question paper.
Teachers’ associations welcomed the government’s decision. Municipal Teachers’ Federation president S. Ramakrishna said that the six-paper pattern would benefit the students and ease the burden on them.
