Tension erupted at the City High School in Odisha’s Berhampur after the students alleged loss of time during the Matric Summative exams because of the invigilators' mismanagement on Friday.
The issue came to fore when the class-10 students sat down to write their 30-minute long vocational paper in the Summative Assessment-1 examination which began at 12 noon.
As per their allegation, the invigilators at the examination centre distributed answer papers after the commencement bell rang, and took their signatures on the sheet immediately after that, wasting 10-15 minutes of their examination time.
On top of that, the examinees were not allowed any grace period to make up for the lost time initially, they alleged.
Speaking to the newsmen, a student, Srutismita said, “Even after complaining about the mismanagement to the school authorities, they did not pay any heed, rather misbehaved with us and our parents.”
“We could only get 15-20 minutes to write our papers. Will the school authorities take responsibility if we get less marks or worse, fail in the examination,” asked another student, Suchitra.
However, the Headmaster of the school refused the allegations and said, “I personally inspected all the exam halls and spoke with the invigilators. The students were provided the time to write as per the norms. There is no confusion here.”
Worth mentioning, 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 has begun across Odisha on January 5, 2022 (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 is conducted from 10-11 am and the second sitting begins from 12-1 pm. However, the students get 15 minutes extra in the second sitting.