West Bengal Board

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West Bengal Board of Secondary Education

The Board of Secondary Education was established in 1951 under an Act of the State Legislature called   the West Bengal Secondary Education Act of 1950. The Board was inaugurated by the then Governor of West Bengal Dr.K.N.Katju on 3rd May 1951 and the Board started functioning under the Chairmanship of Sri Apurba Kumar Chanda. The basic task before the Board was twofold.

     1.To regulate, control and develop secondary education of the State.
     2.To conduct the School Final Examination.

Previously this was done by Calcutta University. The Board was subsequently renamed    as West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in 1964, under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Act 1963. During its long history the Board was superseded by the State Govt. twice. The first instance was from 1954 to 1963 (Bengal Secondary Education (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance 1954) and the second occasion arose from 1978 to 1980. The Board, an autonomous body, in its present look came into existence from    January 1964 with Dr. J.C.Sengupta in the Chair.

The operational ambit of the Board has increased manifold over the years. In 1951 the Board started its journey with 1270 high schools taken over from Calcutta University which increased to 2312 by the end of 1963 and to more than 8000 by the, end of 1975 including some schools outside the territorial jurisdiction of the State. Presently the Board is handling around 10238 numbers of schools.

With the increase in the number of recognized schools, the examinees appearing in the Secondary Examination (School Leaving Examination with a general syllabus) have increased. In 1952, the Board handled only 42000 examinees, which increased to more than five lakhs in 1976 and in 2006 this figure jumped to nearly 8 lakhs.