At present, a student can pass the board exams even if he/she gets 20 marks in one of the paper but manages to secure 34 per cent in a group (language or social science).

This is part of the new seven-point ranking system that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education will be introducing from the next academic session.

The board has described the grading system as “indirect” since there will be both marks and grades on the marksheets.

It is, however, doing away with the system of marks percentages and aggregates. Consequently, there will be no toppers.

The current system of additional subjects will also be done away with. As per the prevailing system, if a student gets more than 34 marks in an additional subject, the excess marks will be added to the total.

From now on, the additional subject will be regarded as an optional elective subject.

Since there is no concept of the grand total, the additional will be dealt as an individual subject, said Board secretary Swapan Sarkar.

Moreover, there will be no concept of interchanging the subjects. “If a student secures poor grades in Mathematics, than it cannot be interchanged with History,” Sarkar added.