The Board of Secondary Education Assam (SEBA) has given two options to the students under the state board for compulsory learning of the Assamese language.
This has been done as per the provisions of the Assamese Language Learning Act 2020 in a bid to make learning Assamese compulsory for the students of schools under SEBA.
As per the guidelines, for schools belonging to areas other than the 6th Scheduled areas, Barak Valley and Bodo medium schools of other areas, two options have been given to the students for compulsory learning of the Assamese language.
In the 6th Scheduled areas, Barak Valley and Bodo medium schools, however this rule won’t be compulsory, but they will get the option to choose Assamese as an elective subject, and obtain a proficiency certificate as an incentive.
The rules will be effective from Class IX registration for the year 2021. As per the first option, any student not opting for Assamese as MIL, can choose Assamese (E) as ‘elective subject’.
In such case, the total number of subjects for such candidates will be six.
At present, there are 11 MIL subjects under the Board and the list of the elective subjects comprises 31 subjects.
For the students who neither opts for Assamese as MIL nor takes Assamese (Elective)as an ‘elective subject’, there is another option to choose Assamese (Elective) as one additional subject.
Such students will have to appear for seven papers instead of six papers. The additional paper would contain 100 marks.
As per a Board notification, the marks obtained in the additional seventh paper won’t be counted for merit purposes and will be shown separately in the marks sheet.
However, it will be mandatory for the student to appear in the Assamese (Elective) examination to qualify in the HSLC examination.
In schools belonging to the 6th Scheduled Areas and Barak Valley and the Bodo medium schools, if any student selects MIL subject other than Assamese, he or she will get the option of selecting the additional seventh paper of Assamese (E), which, however, will not be compulsory for them.