Students of classes X and XII, studying in schools following the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus wrote the first common quarterly exam, where a common question paper was provided by the School Education Department to all government, government-aided and private schools on Wednesday.
This move, the department says, has been made to set uniform standards across the State and to alleviate the students’ fear of exams.
Until last year, this system was followed only in government and government-aided schools at the district-level. But this year, it is being carried out at the State-level and private schools following the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus too, held the common exam. While common question papers are being provided by the department, corrections will be carried out by the respective schools.
However, some schools reported a shortage of question papers. Students wrote the Language I exam, and some schools said there were not enough question papers and that they had to make last-minute arrangements to begin the examination on time.
A school in Choolaimedu said they were given only two question papers in French, while 45 students of class XII students were appearing for the exam. “Our school had a power cut from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and we had to rush to a shop to get copies. We also had a shortage of 10 Hindi question papers,” said the teacher. A head of a school in Chetpet said they received between 20-25 question papers in all languages and had to make copies of the rest. “There was also some confusion about where we had to go to collect the question paper. We were able to start the exam only by 10.20 a.m. We did not receive class XII’s Hindi question papers and used the ones prepared by our teacher earlier,” she said.
A headmaster of a T. Nagar school said that while they had sufficient question papers for classes X and XII, there was a shortage of papers for classes VI and VII.
A school department official said that shortages were reported in some centres because the printer packed only ten question papers in a bundle instead of fifty. “We rectified the problem and photocopies were handed out to the schools. We have seen to it that there will be no shortage from Thursday onwards,” said the official.
An official said the directorate of government examinations gave the question papers in the form of CDs to the district educational officers, who then distributed the papers to the schools.
Students of classes VI, VII and VIII of government and government-aided schools are also writing the common examinations.
