TUMAKURU: As many as 1,457 students remained absent for the II PUC English examinations held in over fifty examination centres across the district on Thursday.
The absentees were mostly from rural areas who were afraid of the language and the repeaters who had failed last time as well, remarked an official.
Yet, some of the repeaters looking much older than the freshers were found writing the examination.
Overall 24,970 students had registered and of them 23,513(94.16 percent) gave the exam. While as many as 657 students out of 665 out of the district and all the five from out of state attended the examination.
At Siddaganga College centre at the town hall, traffic was jammed following the parents arrived in huge numbers by their vehicles to drop their children.
The students were on time at the premises of the examination halls.
"They turned role models by following the Standard Operating Procedure(SOP) and set an example for the forthcoming SSLC examinations," remarked Pradeep Kumar, an NCC officer who was in charge of Sarvodaya PU College's examination hall that alone accounted for over 1,400 students.
Deputy Commissioner Dr K Rakesh Kumar himself paid a visit to the halls and monitored the situation.