CUTTACK: The annual High School Certificate (HSC), Madhyama and State Open School Certificate (SOSC) examinations, conducted simultaneously by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), will begin from Friday.
A total of 5,22,336 candidates including 5,10,778 HSC, 3,792 Madhyama and 7,766 SOSC are expected to appear the examinations which will continue till March 6.
While 314 nodal centres including 21 police station and a police beat house have been set up, elaborate arrangements have been made in all the 3,133 examination centres for smooth conduct of the examinations.
To curb malpractice and ensure free, fair and transparent examination, 70 flying squads have been formed by district education officers(DEOs) and 42 special squads by BSE. The School and Mass Education department will also deploy its own special squads to conduct surprise checks at the examination centres.
“AI-powered CCTV cameras have been installed in all the 314 nodal centres and 300 sensitive and hyper-sensitive examination centres. A command control room has also been set up at BSE head office to monitor movement and activities of examinees, invigilators and staff deployed for conduct of examination though live-streaming. Any irregularity or mismanagement can be seen or tracked directly from the Board office,” said BSE president Srikant Tarai.
In a bid to check paper leak, the BSE for the first time has used watermarks and QR codes in question papers. “We have adopted security features in question papers of all subjects. All papers have been numbered with watermark and QR code. If a question paper goes viral, the source can easily be traced through the watermark or the QR code,” said Tarai.