The Central Board of Secondary Examination has relaxed the pass-mark criteria for students who will appear for the Class 10 board examination beginning March 5.

The students have to score 33% overall, instead of securing the pass mark both in the board examination and the internal assessments, the CBSE said in a notification on Tuesday. The board said this was a “one-time measure” only since the current batch of students had faced a different assessment process last year, when they were in Class 9.

The CBSE had introduced the Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation, which made it optional for Class 10 students to appear for a public examination. However, the system was done away with in 2017.