Rajendra Prasad Mohapatra

Amid a rapid surge in the number of new Covid-19 cases and detection of Omicron variant of the virus, the matriculation summative assessment-1 examinations of Class 10 students began across Odisha on Wednesday.

The examinations are being conducted by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) in two sittings for four days with strict adherence to Covid-19 guidelines. The first sitting in Odia will be conducted from 10-11 am and the second sitting in Mathematics will begin from 12-1 pm today. However the students will get 15 minutes extra in the second sitting.

While theory examinations will be conducted on the first three days, practical examinations will be conducted on January 8. The examinations are based on multiple choice questions and students will answer in OMR sheets.

Question papers have been reportedly sent to 311 nodal centers and as many as 5,76,223 students are appearing in the examination with a maximum of 24 students being allowed in one room. The board has directed all the examination centers to strictly adhere to Covid-19 guidelines during the examination.

“All the students are excited to appear in the new method of examination. We have ensured all the necessary arrangements in place to keep Covid-19 infections at bay in the examination centers,” said a teacher.

Most of the students have expressed their pleasure over the new method of the board examination.

“Last year students had to suffer amid the unprecedented pandemic due to the absence of a proper examination method. We are happy that the current method of examination will reward the best of efforts by students,” said Ipsita Bhuyana, a student.

It is worth mentioning that in the backdrop of the increasing Covid-19 cases last year, the government had to cancel the Matric examination and marks were evaluated through special criteria. Besides this, there was also a delay in publishing the results. Again, offline examinations had to be conducted for unsatisfied students.

To do away with a similar situation, students will appear in two summative examinations in a year from this year onwards.

(Edited by Ramakant Bisaws)

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