MUMBAI: Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams in the offline mode began in Maharashtra on Friday with over 14 lakh students in the state, including 3 lakh in the Mumbai division, writing their papers in their respective colleges.
This is the first state board exam being conducted offline after the March 2020 pandemic.
Students queued up outside their colleges to get their temperatures checked. Donning masks students were seen dipping into their books as the warning bell rang at 9.50am and students proceeded to their classrooms.
The answer booklets were handed over at 10am to allow students time to fill in their personal details, including barcoding.
Students got 10 minutes to read their question papers before the writing began at 10.30am. All students are appearing for the 80 marks English paper that ends at 2pm, including an additional 30 minutes. The HSC practical and oral exams that began on February 14 ended on March 3.
Last year board exams were cancelled due to the pandemic and final results were based on internal assessment.
There are 9,635 centres in the state, including 1,282 in the Mumbai division, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Raigad and Palghar. Among students taking exams, over 6 lakh are from the science stream and 4 lakh each are from the arts and commerce faculties.
Students are being supervised by teachers of their own colleges. District collectors and education officers have been asked to visit exam centres.
Flying squads, comprising senior lecturers and education officers will be making surprise visits to exam centres.
While the state board is conducting exams for the entire syllabus (75% portion), non-state boards like CBSE and CISCE have conducted semester one board exams in October-November covering 50% syllabus. The semester 2 exams of these boards will begin at the end of April.
