CUTTACK: In a glaring goof-up, erroneous question sets were given to High School Certificate (HSC) examinees in Odisha, exposing the inept handling of the Class X board examination by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE).
Several examinees appearing for the HSC Summative Assessment-2 were confused after finding the erroneous question set in the History, Geography and Political Science papers of the Social Science examination, which was conducted in 3,218 centres across the state on Saturday.
The examinees alleged that there were several questions from set A in the set B question paper. Besides, question number 19 was also missing from set B. As a result, the students had only attempted 49 questions.
“Out of the total 50 questions, while question number 19 was missing, as many as 11 questions from Set A were found to have been inserted in the Set B question booklet. I got confused and did not know what to do,” said an examinee.
BSE President Ramasish Hazra, who admitted there were errors in the question papers, however, assured examinees not to be worried as the BSE would take care of it.
“We have received complaints from some examination centres and are aware of the errors. There are some printing and binding mistakes in some question paper booklets of set B. The students need not be worried as they will not be affected by the errors,” said Hazra, adding that the Board would consider it and take appropriate steps.
Superintendents of all the examination centres have been asked to provide a list of students who had been provided the erroneous question set while appearing in the Social Science examination, he said.
“We will take necessary action to check reoccurrence of such errors in future,” Hazra added.
Meanwhile, parents and guardians of students appearing in the HSC examination blamed the gross irresponsibility of BSE officials for the error.