
A total of 82 cases of copying and cheating were reported during the first day of the HSC exams in English across all nine divisions in the state — Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Kolhapur, Amravati, Nashik, Latur and Konkan. However, no cases of cheating were reported in Mumbai and Konkan divisions.
In Mumbai division, 3,39,014 students appeared for the exams, including 1,919 “divyang” students. Stream-wise, 94,668 science students, 52,189 arts students, 187,224 commerce students and 4,913 vocational students are appearing for the exams.
In a first, the Mumbai divisional board this year allowed a blind student of Shri TP Bhatia College, Kandivali, to appear for the exams using an approved special software called “Non-visual desktop access” or Super Nova. Bhavya Shah, a science student, had his centre at Prakash College, Kandivali. “He needs to be orally told the question, after which he types the answer on the computer wearing headphones and the computer also simultaneously repeats what he has written. His typing speed is very high, and he appeared for his CBSE Class 10 exams using the same software,” said principal Dr Sangeeta Shrivastava.
Another student, Kushal Modi of Swami Vivekanand Junior College in Chembur, also received the board’s approval for wearing gloves during his exams on account of a hyper sweating problem.