Kolkata: Nearly 6.6 lakh students will appear for the upcoming Higher Secondary semester III examinations, the first to be held under the new semester system. The figure marks a sharp increase of 1.76 lakh over the last batch of the final annual HS exam in March.
According to the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, a total of 6,59,877 students have enrolled for the September 8–22 exams, where all papers will be in multiple-choice format and answered on OMR sheets. In contrast, only 4,82,948 students had enrolled for the last annual examination.
Behind the rise, however, lies a sharp fall when compared with Madhyamik. Of the 7,65,252 candidates who passed Madhyamik in 2024, only 6,59,877 have enrolled for semester III, a drop of 1,05,375 students, or nearly 13.8%. Council records show that almost all Madhyamik qualifiers, 7,64,326, registered for Class XI last year, with just 926 opting out. By 2025, when this batch moved up, 7,04,870 students were promoted to Class XII, leaving 59,456 who either failed or skipped the exam. A further 44,993 dropped off between promotion and HS enrolment, taking the overall gap between Class XI registration and HS enrolment to about 13.7%. Teachers attribute the exits partly to the state’s Taruner Swapna scheme.
“Many students lose interest in continuing after receiving the aid,” said Soudipta Das, secretary of the Collegium of Assistant Headmasters and Assistant Headmistresses.
WBCHSE president Chiranjib Bhattacharya said: “In the first semester, which was fully MCQ-based, most students scored well. But the second semester brought in short-answer and descriptive questions and many failed. We introduced the supplementary exam, but by then most schools had already moved on with Class XII classes, leaving little room for students to take advantage of it. From the next batch, the process will be streamlined,” he said.