Tamil Nadu: 9 lakh students to appear for plus-2 exams tomorrow

Chennai: To reduce the malpractices in board exams, the Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) has restricted the use of private school teachers and out of 50,000 teachers to be involved in exam related works, only 2,000 (4 per cent) of them are from private schools.

The state board plus-2 exams are scheduled to begin from Friday. Totally, 8.87 lakh students (including private candidates) would write the exams at 2,944 exam centres from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

The exams will go on until March 19.

Before the exam preparation, the DGE has ordered the education officials to use government headmasters, post-graduate teachers and teachers for the exam work.

"Out of 50,000 teachers to be employed for exam-related works, only around 2,000 teachers (4 per cent) are from private schools. Further, these private school teachers also would be relieved from exam duty after the language exams," officials from DGE said.

Following the direction, the chief educational officials have appointed less than one per cent of private school principals as chief superintendents in exam centres.

"Due to fewer government schools in Chennai the officials have no other option but to appoint them as chief superintendents," they said.

"Most of them not aware of the exam procedures and easily get manipulated by private schools. It is also very difficult to punish them if they involve in exam malpractices," officials explained the rationale behind the decision.

To avoid long-distance travel for government school students, the directorate has allowed 150 new exam centres.

"This year the plus 1 and plus 2 students from government schools need not travel more than 10 km to write their exams," sources said.

Among the candidates, the girl students outnumber the boys. Among 8.61 lakh students from 7,082 schools, 4.6 lakh of them are girls; 4.01 lakh are students. Compared to boys 58,905 more girls would write the exam.

Including two transgenders, 26,885 private candidates will write this exam.

This year 5.28 lakh students would appear for science stream exams, 2.61 lakh students to appear for commerce stream. For vocational courses, 57,346 students would appear and for arts group 13,952 have registered for the exam.

From Chennai, 158 exam centres, 49,419 students would appear for plus 2 exams. From Puducherry, 15,408 students would write exams in 40 centres.

Of 8.61 lakh candidates, 5,13,884 of them are first-generation students.

Around 2,400 differently-abled candidates would avail various concessions including extra one hour and scribe.

Over 4,000 flying and standing squad members would conduct surprise checks to ensure fair exam.

In a release, D. Vasundradevi, director of government examinations has warned the private schools against involving in exam malpractices.

The plus 1 exam would start on March 6 and class 10 exams would start on March 14.