Karnataka: 23 infected students to write SSLC exams from Covid Care Centres

Among several measures taken by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education to ensure the safe conduct of the exams amid the Covid-19 pandemic were increasing the number of exam centres and deploying staff members who have been inoculated with the vaccine.

While the number of exam centres has been increased to 4,885 from 3,310 in 2020, staff deployed for the process have gone up to 1.19 lakh in comparison with the 80,000 last year. As many as 73,064 examination rooms have been set up across the districts for the 8.76 lakh students. The same was 48,000 in 2020, when the government held the exam amid the pandemic for the first time.

Further, as per the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in place for the exams, only 12 students, one per bench, will be seated in a classroom. At the same time, officials have been directed to shift any student with symptoms of cough, cold, and fever to separate rooms, earmarked in each centre, to complete the test. Each centre is equipped with a health check-up counter where thermal scanners and pulse oximeters will be used as well.

As per the revised format, students will answer a paper covering all three core subjects (Mathematics, Science, Social Science) on Monday while another exam covering all languages (first, second, and third) will be held on July 22. The exams will be held from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm with students answering multiple-choice questions on OMR sheets.