CHENNAI: A new pattern will be introduced in the board exams for the linguistic minority students, who opted to appear for their mother tongue subject.

A decision was taken in this regard by the School Education Department following the Supreme Court's order.

A senior official from the School Education Department said here that at present, there are five subjects in Class X board exams such as Tamil, English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. Each subject carries 100 marks and there would be a total of 500 marks.

This system is being adopted for the minority students even though they had opted for additional language subject" he said, adding "Accordingly, the additional language marks was not included in the tenth mark sheet and their total would also be 500 marks.

In view of this, the minority students moved to the Supreme Court recently and sought justice to include their additional language marks in the mark sheet so that they would get a total of 600 -- (Tamil, English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, and opted language).

Following the Apex court's order, the School Education Department, in its order, said from the next academic year onwards the minority Class X Students' marks and percentage will be calculated for a total of 600 for six subjects.

As usual, other general category students will get a total of 500 marks for five subjects.