BHUBANESWAR: Amid concerns over large-scale dropouts at school-level, over 5,000 Plus II final year students have been found to have skipped the annual higher secondary examination (AHSE)-2026, which concluded on Saturday.
This has got the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) to initiate a detailed investigation to find out the exact reasons for their absence from the exam this year.
As many as 4.01 lakh students from arts, science, commerce and vocational education streams had registered for the annual exam that commenced on February 18 this year. However, Council officials said around 3,96,592 appeared for the exams, while the remaining 5,031 failed to turn up.
Sources said the Council received reports regarding 30 to 40 students failing to appear for their papers due to chicken pox infection. But, it is yet to ascertain the reasons for the rest.
With the absence of students in such large numbers raising alarm over increasing dropout rates, controller of examination (CoE) Prasanta Kumar Parida told TNIE that the higher secondary schools (HSSs) will be asked to furnish report regarding the number of absentees and the reasons behind it.
Council officials said the data collected from the HSSs will be helpful in analysing if any intervention is needed to bring down the rate of absence and check dropouts, if any, taking place at higher secondary level.
Officials said evaluation of Plus II answer papers will be taken up in two phases from April and steps will be taken to publish the results within 45 days. “The results are expected to be published in the later part of May,” said an official.
The Council has also announced to conduct improvement exam for the students to help increase their score after the results are declared. The exam will be conducted simultaneously with the Plus II instant exams.