The Governing Body, the highest decision making body of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), has approved the restoring of the board-based Class X exams on Tuesday, paving the way for return of the public exam at the end of the secondary education after seven years. The first exam will be conducted in March 2018. It has been decided that the weightage division will be 80% will be Board-based and 20% will be internal assessments.

Since 2011, after the introduction of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) in 2009, the Board made the Class X board exam optional, which means students studying in senior secondary schools had the option to sit for the school-based exam. CBSE conducted a survey among various stakeholders and the majority were in favour of the compulsory Class X public exam. Thereafter, the ministry of human resource development announced the rollback of the optional scheme of the present Class X exam system.