The Central Board of Secondary Education would be coming out with a virtual lab in which students can perform chemical experiments several times on the internet to help them understand concepts better.

Several students were afraid of handling chemicals in laboratories and did not attend laboratory sessions in schools, Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE, said.

"When IIT is able to replicate textbooks with audio and video, why cannot we do something similar for the lab sessions, which made me think of the virtual lab concept," he said.

CBSE would soon come out with a strategy for implementing it, he told reporters after launching multi-media based modules in Physics and Chemistry for Classes VI to VIII as part of the 'Kuruvilla Jacob Education Memorial Trust Initiative' for promoting excellence in school education in association with IIT Madras.

Joshi said several parents had welcomed CBSE?s continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE). "We are now involving teachers and parents to make CCE better. CCE does not mean 100 per cent assessment, it is just a continuous evaluation of students," he said.

Earlier addressing teachers and students, Joshi said the Human Resource Development ministry will convene a meeting this month to evolve a common syllabus for Commerce subject in schools across the country.