Over 8 lakh students to appear for Class 12 Board Exam in T.N.

In an effort to keep teachers involved in their examination duties, the School Education Department has decided to appoint volunteers, mostly college students, as scribes for school students taking up the public exam.

The department has come out with new procedures including confidentiality of question papers and Aadhaar verification of private candidates, among others.

School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said second-year students from B.Ed. colleges, District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET), arts and science colleges, and engineering colleges, as well as Illam Thedi Kalvi volunteers would be appointed as scribes for students taking up the public exam. “These scribes are being trained from the revision exams to make sure that they are fully equipped for the boards,” he said in Chennai on Monday.

Mr. Mahesh held a meeting with School Education Department authorities to check the preparations for the upcoming exams. The State Board Public Examinations are set to commence in March. While 8,27,475 candidates will appear for the Class 12 Board Exam that will begin from March 2, 9,09,002 candidates will appear for the Class 10 Board Exam on March 11 in Tamil Nadu.

Of those who will appear for the Class 12 exam, 7,99,692 will be school students and 27,783 private candidates. In the case of the Class 10 exam, 8,82,806 will be school students, while 26,196 will be private candidates. Meanwhile, 281 prisoners will appear for the Class 12 public exam and 395 for the Class 10 board one.

Following the implementation of the State Education Policy, this year onwards there will be no Class 11 public exam. But the arear exam for Class 11 will be held, in which 25,051 candidates will appear, including 19,107 school students and 5,944 private candidates. The candidates will appear for the public examination at 3,412 centres for the Class 12 exam, 2,615 centres for the Class 11 arrear exams, and 4,219 centres for the Class 10 exam.

Over 49,000 teachers will be deployed in this examination process on each examination day. Over 4,900 flying squads will also be deployed in the examination process to prevent malpractice.

Addressing mediapersons, Mr. Mahesh stated that the department had come out with logarithmic books in A4 size sheets for the ease of students writing physics, chemistry, mathematics, business mathematics, and statistics. “As the font is small, it has proved to be difficult for students. This will help them to better answer their questions,” he said. Further for candidates appearing for the accountancy exam, ordinary calculators without programming can be used.

Officials from the School Education Department including School Education Secretary B. Chandra Mohan and School Education Director S. Kannappan were among those present.