Just at a time when dengue fever seems to be threatening in some places near Madurai, there is also a different type of fever that has gripped right now.
For students of Class X, it is examination fever since their Board examinations began on Wednesday while there is cricket fever too as the IPL cricket tournament began.
In Madurai district, totally 44,374 students from 408 schools are appearing for SSLC public examinations this year. After several months of intensive preparation, the students are writing the examinations at 112 examination centres in the district.
Of the total 44,374 regular students, there are 22,768 boys and 21,606 girls. Also, there are additional nine centres for private candidates. Senior officials in the School Education Department here have said that adequate steps have been taken to prevent malpractices such as copying in examination centres. Special squads were formed under the aegis of Revenue Department.
While a standing squad is posted for each centre, there are also flying squads headed by the District Educational Officers of Madurai, Melur and Usilampatti educational districts.
In view of scheduled and unscheduled power cuts, generators were kept ready at each centre so that students do not feel any sort of inconvenience while writing their examinations.
On Wednesday, students wrote Language Paper I and Friday is a holiday. Language Paper II is on April 9 followed by English first paper on April 11, English Paper II on April 12, Mathematics on April 16, Science on April 19 and Social Science on April 23.
This is the first batch of students that is taking the Class X Board examinations under the ‘Samacheer Kalvi' pattern which introduced uniform syllabus for all types of schools. U. Sagayam, Collector, accompanied by the school education officials, visited two centres in the city to inspect the arrangements made for examinations.
Even though the students may face many distractions due to power cuts and the IPL cricket matches, senior officials of School Education Department have exuded confidence that the students will come out in flying colours due to the focused coaching given to them in the last three months.
“The first day went off well and there were no complaints of malpractice. I am sure that our district students will do well and in fact emerge as ‘super kings,'” S.Nagaraja Murugan, Chief Educational Officer, Madurai District, has said.
