No Tamil Nadu 11th public exams from 2025-26 onwards, certificates to have 12th marks, orders govt

As part of the implementation of Tamil Nadu State Education Policy (SEP) 2025, the government has cancelled first-year higher secondary public exams, starting from the academic year 2025-26 for student welfare. In a fresh Government Order (GO), the school education department has allowed schools to conduct exams for failed candidates till the next five years.

“After careful consideration, and in implementation of the Tamil Nadu State Education Policy 2025, the government issues the following orders: From the academic year 2025–2026, the Higher Secondary First Year (Class XI) Public Examination is cancelled,” the school education department said in the latest government order.

From the 2025-26 session onwards, the exams for students studying in Class 11 will be conducted following the system that existed before the 2017–2018 academic year, and promotion will be granted accordingly, as per GO.

The education department has allowed the Director of Government Examinations (DGE) to continue holding Tamil Nadu Class 11th public exams for students who already failed, for the next five years until March 2030.

In a revision of the method of issuing marks certificates, the Tamil Nadu govt will only provide Class 12 certificates. Students will receive a marks certificate only for the Class 12 board exams, containing only second-year marks (not combined 11th, 12th marks). The Director of Government Examinations has been given the authority to implement this change.

Tamil Nadu public exams 2026

While announcing the cancellation of Tamil Nadu 11th public exams 2025, the TN governor cited previous orders on exams. As per the very first GO, the 10+2+3 system of education was implemented across Tamil Nadu for school and higher education. In the second order, the government directed that from March 1980 onwards, a state-level public examination for Higher Secondary second-year or Class 12 will be conducted. The third GO introduced HS first-year public exams from the academic year 2017–2018 (March 2018) onwards.

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In the fourth letter, the Director of School Education recommended – considering students’ welfare and to ensure that they pursue higher secondary education without any stress or fear of public exams — that the Higher Secondary first-year (Class 11) public examination be cancelled from the academic year 2025–2026, in line with the Tamil Nadu State Education Policy 2025.