BENGALURU: Both SSLC and PUC II final examinations are likely to be held simultaneously starting March/April 2018. However, it is yet to be seen if the Department of Primary and Secondary Education is equipped to carry out such a major change.
The discussions are on in this regard and a final decision will be taken by the second week of August.
Department officials said that as per preliminary discussions, students of both the classes will be shuffled in the examination halls. “For instance, there will be one SSLC and one PUC student on each desk,” Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait said.
“We are discussing conducting the exams for both the classes together. This will not just save time, it will also help reduce malpractice cases,” Sait said.
Conducting exams without errors is a challenge before the department every year. Among the other issues haunting the department are question paper leaks, malpractice cases and mass copying. To this the minister said that holding both the exams simultaneously will resolve 90 per cent of these issues. “The number of room invigilators we need will be reduced. Besides, we can also use the same transportation for both the exams,” he said.
The idea is to announce the time tables for both the exams at the same time and begin the exams on the same date.
However, to implement this, infrastructure is the biggest challenge before the government. SSLC itself has 8 lakh students appearing for the final exams while PUC has 6 lakh students. So, in order to conduct exams for 14 lakh students at a time, the department needs to figure out exam centres that have proper infrastructure.
The state has at least 16,000 government and aided high schools and 5,000 government PU colleges, but those with good infrastructure in place are few.
Asked about this, the minister said, “We are discussing this issue and we will find a solution soon. This is the second phase of reforming the examination process.”