Students writing Intermediate public examinations starting from March 12 will do well by being present at their respective exam centres by 8.30 a.m., as the deadlines have been advanced by quarter an hour this time.
The grace period of 15 minutes allowed for latecomers will be between 8.45 a.m. and 9 a.m., instead of 9 a.m. and 9.15 a.m. as earlier, informed the Secretary, BIE, Ram Sankar Nayak.
Mobile phones will be strictly forbidden inside the halls, and there will be no facility for their safekeeping too, Mr. Nayak sought to warn. Those with backlogs, and those attempting improvement will get to write papers set with old syllabus.
“Even the invigilators should not carry their mobile phones into the examination hall. Only the officers serving as observers may carry the mobiles, and a strict surveillance will be kept through GPS on the data transmitted from them too,” he informed.
A total of 19,78,379 students from first and final years of Intermediate will be writing the exams this time in 2,661 examination centres — 975 government, 187 aided and 1,499 unaided. Scribes have been permitted for a total of 477 visually impaired and differently-abled candidates. All major examinations will be concluded by March 26. Evaluation of Sanskrit language papers will begin on March 19, and of other papers on March 28.
District examination committees and high power committee have been constituted for the conduct of exams. A total of 133 flying squads and 135 sitting squads have been constituted, with members drawn from education, police and revenue departments. Regional Joint Directors of Intermediate Education and District Vocational Educational Officers, apart from officers from the Board’s head office, will be deputed as observers. Requests have been made to RTC, power and health departments for provision of facilities for the exams, Mr. Nayak informed.
Announcement on evaluation awaitedThe BIE is yet to make an announcement about the evaluation of answer sheets region-wise, in view of the accusations that evaluation for the past four years has been to the disadvantage of students from Telangana.
Repeated questions to its secretary Rama Sankar Nayak on Monday’s media conference to announce the Intermediate exam schedule, could not bring out any clarity on this. He merely said the issue was under consideration, and nothing could be revealed due to reasons of confidentiality.
Meanwhile, members of Telangana Lecturers’ Forum held protest demonstration in front of the Secretary’s chambers, and shouted slogans demanding for the answer sheets of Telangana students to be evaluated in the region.
“In recent past, results of over 5,000 students whose answer sheets went to Seemandhra region improved a great deal after re-evaluation. This shows bias and we are demanding evaluation of answer sheets from Telangana should take place here,” charged vice-president of the Forum Rajashekhar Reddy.
Lower score in Intermediate will reflect on the students’ future by marring their chances in EAMCET, IIT-JEE and other such entrance tests to get into professional courses, he said.
