CBSE will launch global curriculum; draft scheme for holding board exams twice a year soon

NEW DELHI : The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will launch a global curriculum for foreign students for the academic session 2026-2027. The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

In a high-level meeting with officials including the representatives of CBSE global schools, Pradhan discussed in detail the modalities of setting up and implementing the global curriculum.

“Today the Hon'ble Minister of Education, Sh. Dharmendra Pradhan, chaired a high level meeting with Secretary, DoSEL, Secretary ER, MEA, heads of CBSE, NCERT, KVS, NVS along with representatives of global schools. The modalities of establishing and implementing the CBSE Global Curriculum were discussed in detail and CBSE was directed to launch CBSE Global Curriculum for Foreign Schools from 2026-2027 and to prepare a detailed action plan accordingly,” the central board said in a post on X.

Earlier today, the education minister informed that the draft scheme for conducting board exams twice a year will be placed in public soon. Expressing the government's focus on creating a stress-free learning environment for students, he said that improvement and reforms in examination are major steps towards this goal.

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“Taking this a step forward, held detailed deliberations with the secretary school education, CBSE chairperson and other officials of the ministry and CBSE over “conduct of CBSE examinations twice a year”. The draft scheme of these deliberations will be placed soon for public consultation by CBSE. This reform is another crucial step towards implementation of key provisions of NEP and will help mitigate exam related stress among students,” he said in a post.

Last year, CBSE secretary Himanshu Gupta told Careers360 that the board is going to develop a framework for the internationalisation of curriculum as part of its expansion and globalisation plans, also in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

CBSE board exams

Moreover, there have been consultations on conducting board exams twice a year as recommended in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), a practice followed in old times. The board has been exploring the format options with the two major ones being a semester system with biannual exams and holding the second set of exams in June.

CBSE had rubbished claims that it cannot conduct biannual exams, despite the fact that the exams are being conducted only once for the last two years. The education ministry had asked the board to work out the logistics required for conducting the exams twice, starting from the 2025-26 session.