CCTVs, flying squads will keep a close watch on malpractices

The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination conducted by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education will begin on Thursday.

Over 2.51 lakh students will appear for the SSC exam from the Pune division, which covers Pune, Ahmednagar and Solapur districts. Board officials said there are 446 exam centres in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

To keep a close tab on exam-related irregularities including copying, 245 flying squads (seven for each district) have been appointed across the state.

"Officers deputed on the exam duty will pay surprise visits to the examination centres," a board official said, adding that closed-circuit televisions have been installed at the sensitive centres.

Board officials said the multi-question paper method will be followed for English (second and third language) and mathematics, where 30% questions will vary.

Similarly, the English medium students have been allowed to opt for Marathi as the first language while the Marathi medium students have been allowed to opt for English as the first language paper.

The question papers on environment education, personality development and health and physical education, which are compulsory subjects, will carry grades instead of marks, the board said.

Visually challenged, speech/hearing impaired students, spastic or students have learning disabilities like dyslexia-dysgraphia-dyscalculia can get a writer for all subjects. "However, in exceptional cases, centre in-charges have been given the power to recommend another writer," the official said, explaining that in such cases, it is mandatory for the centre in-charges to give a detailed report to the board.

Manasi Saraf-Joshi/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication