Established under Act No.4 of the Himachal Pradesh State Legislative Assembly, The HSOS started functioning by covering the whole of Himachal Pradesh within its ambit. As empowered by the Act, the Board prescribes, regulates, supervises, and develops the educational system of the state up to the higher secondary level.

The HSOS prescribes courses of instruction up to higher secondary level and vocational education. It conducts and supervises the conduct of:

• HS Examination
• Class XI Examination
• Secondary Examination
• XII/X Compartmental Examination

The Board prepares the curriculum & syllabus and prescribes textbooks for secondary and higher secondary and conducts the examinations. It organizes teachers' development programs and conducts workshops, seminars, and training of teachers on matters related to academic and examination issues. For the past 3 years, the Board has been carrying out in-service teachers' training under RMSA programme.

It lays down conditions for registration and recognition of schools and constantly monitors the academic standards of its registered schools. The Board considers the collection, evaluation of statistics, and analysis of results a very important function and so publishes regularly the analysis report. Doing so, it tries to study and examine the problems in the field of education for onward submission to the Government.