BHUBANESWAR: Even as the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) had earlier announced to hold first year examination for 10+2 students in the current (2016-17) academic session, the State Government is yet to give a goahead. Although the CHSE Examination Committee had approached the State Government in 2015 to introduce examination in first year by amending the Odisha Higher Secondary Act, 1982, the latter has not given a clearance so far.
Examination in the first year was recommended by the Higher Education department’s fact finding committee, which was constituted in 2014 to suggest changes in Plus-Two syllabus, examination and evaluation. The committee had submitted its final report to the department last year and recommended examination for Plus-Two first year so that both teachers and students can take more interest in studies. Only annual Plus-Two examination was held by the CHSE in junior colleges that were brought under the purview of School and Mass Education department this year. Chairman of the Council, Basudev Chattoi, said the State Government is keen on introducing examination in first year as this will improve the standard of students.
“But amending the Odisha Higher Secondary Act, 1982 takes time and this has delayed the entire process. If the State Government gives the green signal, form fill up for the first year examination can be done in October this year,” he said, adding that the CHSE is prepared to conduct the examination. He said that the examination pattern would be multiple- choice type and students will have to answer 50 marks of multiple-choice questions on an OMR (optical mark reading) sheet. “Students can score 50 out of 50 and this will fetch them better marks in the second year exam. This is also the pattern that is followed by CBSE,” said the Chairman.
Like the final year examination, evaluation of first year examination answer sheets will be done digitally. Apparently, the Higher Education department’s fact-finding committee had pointed out that in the absence of an exam in the first year, students treat the first year syllabus as insignificant. This leads to poor scores in Plus Two second year National-level entrance examinations.