COIMBATORE: With over 50,000 Class 12 students skipping the Tamil paper of the board exams, the school education is taking steps to avert a similar situation during Class X exams, which will begin on April 6. Based on directions from the department, teachers across the state are tracing Class 10 students who have not been regularly attending classes.
According to official sources, student details are maintained in the EMIS portal and headmasters cannot remove long absentee students’ names without issuing Transfer Certificates. All students are automatically issued hall tickets for the board exam even if they have irregular to school. This is how officials came to know that many Class 12 students who were absent for a long period got hall tickets and did not write the exam.
“After learning from this, officers have started to trace students through graduate teachers to avert a repeat of the embarrassment,’ sources added. S Sivasubbiah, the headmaster of the government high school at Kannarpalayam in Karamadai, told TNIE, “Educational officers directed all headmasters to ensure that all students attend the Class 10 board exams.
Out of 45 Class 10 students in our school, only two boys didn’t come to school from the middle of the academic year. I approached them and advised them to come to school, but they didn’t do so. After the officers’ order, I met the two students at their home again last week and found out that they were working as coolies along with their parents.
The parents refused to send them to school as they wanted the boys to work to earn more for the family. When I warned them that I would contact Childline and legal action would be taken against them, the boys started coming to school regularly.” He said both the students wrote a practical exam on Monday.