The Annual High School Certificate (HSC) examinations-2014, which started in the State on Tuesday, went on smoothly with many examinees looking upbeat over the new OMR format and question pattern. A record number of over six lakh examinees were accommodated to write the examination at 2,737 centres across the State.
Board of Secondary Education (BSE) president DP Nanda said as scheduled the students entered the examination halls at 8.30 am and were provided with question papers at 8.45 am. At 9 am, the students began answering their first part of the examination which was objective type carrying 50 marks on OMR sheets. With the first part of the examination ending at 10 am, the examination for the rest 50 marks in subjective type mode began after a gap of 15 minutes.
Elaborating further, Nanda said all the squads formed to check malpractice were on their duty and everything was going on smoothly. He said clear instructions had been given to take stringent action wherever mass copying was reported.
An advisory has been issued to scrap the examination centre in case of mass cheating, he maintained.
School and Mass Education Secretary Usha Padhee visited a few schools in the city here to take stock of the arrangements at the examination centres. She told mediapersons that everything worked seamlessly and there were no problems. Padhee personally also interacted with a few students and felt that the students were comfortable and satisfied with the new pattern of the examinations.
As per the new provision, the OMR answer sheets have roll numbers of individual examinee printed on them-one OMR sheet for one roll number- and so there was no scope for malpractice, Padhee added.
She explained that in some cases where roll numbers had not appeared on OMR sheets, the candidates were given new OMR sheets and asked to mention their roll numbers on it. These cases were reported to the nodal centre for record.
While there are 5,57,528 students in regular stream, 51,339 students are in the ex-regular stream. Similarly, 4,626 students are appearing in the Madhyama examination, which is equivalent to matriculation examination in Sanskrit. The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) has arranged a three-tier security system to monitor the examinations.