BHUBANESWAR: The Annual Higher Secondary Examination (AHSE)-2026 kicked off in the state on Wednesday with over 96,000 Plus II final year students writing their papers on the first day.
CHSE officials said total 96,929 students from science stream appeared for the MIL paper on day one. “The exam on the first day remained smooth and no cases of malpractice were reported from any examination centre. However, 157 students failed to turn up for the test,” said CHSE controller of examination (CoE) Prasanta Kumar Parida.
He said a little over four lakh Plus II final year students will be appearing the AHSE-2026 which will continue till March 21. As per the council officials, 2.56 lakh students from arts/humanities, 1.14 lakh students from science, 24,621 students from commerce and 5,932 students from vocational education are appearing for the exam this year.
The exam is being conducted in 99 more upgraded higher secondary schools this year. Accordingly, the number of examination centres has been increased to around 1,350 against 1,268 centres in the previous year. The exam, scheduled from 10 am to 1 pm every day, is being conducted under strict security and CCTV surveillance across all centres.
“For the first time, all 211 hubs where exam-related materials have been kept, have been brought under AI-integrated camera surveillance to improve monitoring and avoid any kind of irregularity. These cameras will immediately notify the council officials in case there is any activity or movement in the rooms where the question papers are kept,” the CoE informed.
The Council has set a target to publish the results for all streams within 40 days of completion of the exam. As per the new guidelines notified by the CHSE, from this year onwards, Class XII students in higher secondary schools (HSSs) are required to clear their internal assessment and project examination papers compulsorily in order to qualify the AHSE exam.