The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will establish a sub-regional office in Agartala, Tripura, in response to concerns over the poor performance of state-run schools affiliated with the board in recent board examinations, an official confirmed on Monday.
Change from English-medium curriculum to Bengali-medium
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in Tripura in 2018, 125 state-run schools were rebranded as Vidyajyoti Schools, and the CBSE's English-medium curriculum was introduced in place of the previous Bengali-medium instruction.
This year, 61 percent of students from these schools passed the CBSE class 10 exams, while 59 percent were successful in the class 12 examinations. Prior to this change, these schools operated under the Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE), with Bengali as the medium of instruction.
CBSE office location and services
Abhijit Samajpati, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Education Department, announced that the state government would allocate appropriate land for the establishment of the CBSE office to enhance the educational infrastructure in the region. The office will temporarily function from a building belonging to Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya.
The new sub-regional office will offer a range of services to CBSE-affiliated schools, including admission assistance, subject corrections, updates to student records, coordination of exam centers, mark sheet corrections, grievance redressal, and teacher training facilitation, Samajpati explained.
"It will also work closely with state education bodies and other regional educational institutions to support the smooth operations of the examination process and student development activities. This initiative will foster a stronger educational environment and expand learning opportunities for students throughout the state," he added.
Reason behind poor performance
The opposition, however, has raised concerns about the significant drop in results, claiming that the government is jeopardising the future of thousands of students. These students, who had studied in Bengali-medium schools up to class 8, were forced to take their board exams in English, contributing to their poor performance, they claimed.
