Odisha BSE Asks DEOs To Report On Reasons Behind 14,935 Students Skipping Class IX Exams

Bhubaneswar: Over 14,000 candidates have skipped the Class IX examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE).

Out of the 5,66,269 candidates who had enrolled for the exam, 14,935 did not appear. Acting on the absenteeism of students from the exams, the BSE Secretary has directed all District Education Officers (DEOs) to submit a report on or before May 31.

The DEOs will have to state reasons as to why these candidates could not appear, though they were enrolled by their respective headmasters.

The Board has further said that all the candidates who have appeared the Class IX examination will be promoted to Class- X.

According to a release by the Board, 3,399 students had enrolled for Madhyama examination of which 129 remained absent.

“Nearly 30,138 candidates in Grade F (II) have to improve upon their performance in Improvement Tests to be conducted by the concerned schools,” the Board stated.

It added that the candidates having Grade F (I) have been declared pass on consideration because they fulfil some minimum criteria with regard to aggregate and individual subject marks.

The F (II) candidates will be given three chances to acquire qualifying marks (30%) in each failed subject. Schools will provide remedial teachings to these candidates till May 31, 2022 and conduct improvement tests on June 1, June 8 and June 16.

“Candidates not qualifying at first Improvement test shall appear second Improvement Test after being given remedial teachings in between, for seven days and so on for second & third improvement tests. Schools will prepare questions out of 20 marks and test will be of 40 minutes duration,” the BSE added.

It maybe mentioned that earlier this month Odisha government had ordered a probe into the absence of 43,489 Class X students in this year’s High School Certificate (HSC) exams that ended on May 7. The DEOs were directed to conduct a school-wise analysis for their districts and submit a report.