COIMBATORE: With a view to cut examination costs and manage manpower shortage, the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Government Examinations (TNDGE) is contemplating to hold Class X and Plus Two public examinations simultaneously.
Expenses incurred in appointing invigilators and flying squads, besides providing allowances, transporting question papers to centres and sending back answer sheets separately for both HSC and SSLC exams in March and April respectively, have doubled. Hence, the suggestion, said sources.
The sources said that 50 per cent of the expenditure in conducting the SSLC examination could be brought down if this measure was adopted, as manpower right from the storage points to evaluation centres could be managed.
“There has always been the problem of shortage of invigilators and evaluators during the exams. Apart from Post Graduate teachers (HSC) and BT (SSLC) teachers, teachers from other schools also had to be roped in. As such, classes for students from classes six to nine are affected,” the sources added.
TNDGE officials are said to have held discussions with District Educational Officers (DEOs) to seek their opinion on holding exams for SSLC and Plus Two simultaneously. However, most of them had opposed the idea, raising questions over the basic infrastructure in government schools to hold both exams together and to coordinate with teachers.
On the other hand, a few DEOs had welcomed the suggestion saying that the infrastructure to host the exams simultaneously was quite sufficient. This was evident from the fact that across the State, parallely, government and private schools hold their quarterly and half yearly exams.
They added that both 10th and Plus Two candidates could be made to sit in the same examination hall and provided the respective question papers. The answer sheets can be collected in half an hour’s gap between SSLC and Plus Two.