NEB Class 11 and 12 Exam Routine and Syllabus 2026: How to Read the Routine and Plan Your Preparation

Every year the same two searches spike in the months before the board exams: "NEB class 12 exam routine" and "NEB syllabus". The routine tells you when each paper falls; the syllabus tells you what each paper can ask. Used together they give you a plan. Used separately, or taken from a screenshot on social media, they give you surprises.

This guide explains where the official routine and syllabus come from, how to read them, how the marks and grades work under the current curriculum, and how to build a preparation schedule from the notes and past questions for your subjects on NEB Class 11 and NEB Class 12. It does not reproduce exam dates: those change every year and the only reliable copy is the one on the board's site.

Where the official routine is published

The National Examinations Board (NEB), under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, conducts the Class 12 examination nationally and publishes its routine as a notice on the board's website, neb.gov.np, linked in the sources. The Class 11 examination follows the board's calendar and routine as well, with the examination administered through the schools and the board's provincial and district offices. The routine is published as a PDF notice, usually some weeks before the examination, and any change (a postponement because of a public holiday, a disaster or an election) is published the same way.

Treat any routine image shared on social media or a coaching page as unverified until you have matched it to the board's notice. notesharu keeps the current official schedule and form-filling events for each grade on the Class 11 exam routine page and the Class 12 exam routine page, updated from the official notices, and always links to the source.

How to read the routine

The NEB routine is a table with one row per examination day. Each row carries the date in Bikram Sambat (with the Gregorian date sometimes shown alongside), the time the paper starts, and the subject or subjects examined in that sitting. A few things to check carefully:

• Subject codes. The routine lists subjects by name and code. Make sure you read the row for your subject code, since similar subjects (for example, two mathematics papers or two computer subjects) have different codes and dates.
• Session time. Papers are set for a fixed morning or afternoon start. Note which one applies to each of your papers, since they can differ across days.
• Gaps. The routine usually leaves one or more days between the heavy subjects. Those gaps are your revision slots, and knowing where they fall is the main reason to read the routine early.
• Practical examinations. Practical and internal assessments are conducted by the school before the written examination, under the board's schedule and guidelines. They are not in the written routine.
• Form filling. Before the routine comes the examination form notice with its deadlines and fees. Missing the form deadline means missing the examination, so track the form-filling notice first.

The syllabus you are examined on

Class 11 and 12 follow the Grade 11 and 12 curriculum introduced in 2076 BS, developed by the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) and published on moecdc.gov.np, linked in the sources. Under it, English, Nepali and Social Studies and Life Skills are compulsory, and students take optional subjects in their stream: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Computer Science in Science; Accountancy, Economics, Business Studies, Business Finance and related subjects in Management; and the law subjects in the Law stream, among others.

For each subject the curriculum fixes the units, the hours allocated to each, the learning outcomes, and the specification grid that says how many marks each unit carries and how they are split across question types. The specification grid is the part most students never read, and it is the part that tells you where the marks are. On notesharu every subject page shows this syllabus unit by unit, with notes and solved questions attached to each unit, so you can see at a glance which units are large and which are small. The syllabus page for any subject, for example Class 11 Physics syllabus, lists the units and their weight.

Marks and grades

Under the 2076 curriculum most theory subjects carry 100 marks: 75 marks for the external written examination conducted by the board and 25 marks for internal assessment or practical work conducted by the school. Subjects with a laboratory component use their 25 marks for the practical examination.

Results are given as letter grades on a four-point GPA scale rather than percentages. The grade for a subject is determined from the combined external and internal marks, and the GPA is the credit-weighted average across subjects. A student who scores below the board's minimum in a subject receives a non-graded (NG) result in that subject and must re-appear in it. The exact grade boundaries and the current rules for NG and re-examinations are in the board's notices, and they have been revised in recent years, so check the current version on neb.gov.np rather than relying on a senior's memory.

Building a plan from the routine

Once the routine is out, the plan writes itself in three steps.

1. Count the days per subject

Write the subjects in exam order with the number of free days before each. The first paper gets all the weeks before the examination; later papers get only the gap days after the previous paper. Plan the bulk of each later subject's revision before the examination starts, and use the gap days for a final pass only.

2. Rank units by marks and by past paper frequency

Open each subject on notesharu, read the unit list, and open the important questions view, which ranks topics by how often they have appeared in past board papers. Combine that with the marks per unit from the specification grid. A unit with high marks and high frequency is a priority; a unit with low marks and no recent questions is a last-day skim. Solved past papers for each grade are on the Class 11 past questions and Class 12 past questions pages.

3. Study in the style the paper will test

Board papers mix very short answers, short answers and long answers, and the specification grid gives the count of each. Practise each unit at the three lengths. The chapter notes on notesharu are written for exactly that: a definition line, a short explanation, and a full answer with diagrams or worked numericals where the subject needs them. For a worked example of a single chapter, see the Thermal Expansion chapter in Class 11 Physics or the Sustainable Development Goals and Nepal chapter in Class 12 Economics.

A sample week structure

Adjust the balance by stream. Science students should give the afternoon slot to numericals; Management students to accounting problems and economics diagrams; Law students to case-style and constitutional questions.

Common mistakes

Studying from a routine that is not the current year's. Dates move, subjects are added and dropped, and a saved image from last year is wrong by definition. Check the date on the notice.

Ignoring internal assessment. The 25 internal marks are earned during the year through practicals, projects and school tests. Students who neglect them need a far higher external score for the same grade.

Spending the gap days on new material. A gap of two days before a paper is for revision of what you already know, not for a unit you never studied. Cover every unit at least once before the examination begins.

Links for both grades

Notes for every subject are on the NEB notes page, split into Class 11 notes and Class 12 notes. The grade hubs at NEB Class 11 and NEB Class 12 list every subject by stream with its syllabus, notes, questions and important questions. The official routine, form-filling notices and results come from the National Examinations Board, and the curriculum and specification grids from the Curriculum Development Centre, both linked in the sources.