The Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (GBSHSE) has announced an important policy change for Class 9 examinations . Starting from the 2025-26 academic year-end assessment cycle , schools across Goa will regain the responsibility of setting their own question papers. This significant decision comes after the Board carefully considered feedback received from various educational institutions.
Why the Change?
For the academic year that just passed and the first term of the current 2025-26 academic year , the Goa Board had a different system. During this period, the GBSHSE centrally prepared all Class 9 question papers for all schools. This meant that every school used the exact same question paper designed by the Board. However, after these centralized assessments, schools provided their suggestions and opinions. Officials from the GBSHSE confirmed that these valuable inputs from schools directly led to the Board's decision to return the paper-setting duties to individual schools.
How the New System Will Work
Under the updated arrangement, which brings back an older method, schools will not have complete freedom to create any paper they wish. Instead, the Goa Board will issue a detailed guide, known as a 'blueprint'. This blueprint is like a set of instructions. It will clearly define the format, the types of questions to be included, and the expected difficulty level for the Class 9 examinations . Schools must strictly follow this blueprint when they design their question papers. This method ensures that while schools set their own papers, a certain standard and uniformity are maintained across the state. This helps ensure that students are tested fairly on common learning goals.
Paper Review Process
A crucial step in this process is the review of the question papers. After schools prepare their papers, these will be collected based on geographical groupings called 'clusters'. Experienced senior teachers from within these clusters will then meet at the 'taluka' level to review all the prepared question papers. Their main task is to verify that each paper strictly adheres to the Board's blueprint. They will check for proper question distribution, clarity, and ensure the difficulty level is appropriate for Class 9 students. This careful review helps to correct any errors and maintain high quality in the examinations.
Evaluation and Board's Role
Even with schools setting the papers, the process of checking answer scripts remains largely the same. Schools will continue to be responsible for evaluating the answer sheets of their own students. Once the evaluation is complete and marks are finalized, schools will upload these marks directly onto the Goa Board's official online portal. This digital submission helps in quick and accurate processing of results.
The Goa Board will keep a strong supervisory role throughout this new system. Its oversight ensures that all schools follow the guidelines and maintain the necessary academic standards. The Board also has a forward-looking plan: it intends to use some of the best-designed question papers created by schools. These high-quality papers will be added to the GBSHSE's own internal question bank. This will help the Board strengthen its collection of questions and improve future examination practices.
This change is expected to empower schools by giving them more direct control over the assessment tools for their students. It aims to make the examination process more suitable and tailored to the specific learning environment of each school, based on their feedback. For students in Class 9 , this means their year-end exams from 2025-26 onwards will be based on papers set by their own schools, guided by the Goa Board.
