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Govt schools in Ludhiana at capacity, students take exam sitting on floor
Due to a clash between the date sheets of board and non-board classes, government schools in Ludhiana were seen struggling to accommodate students on Monday,
Bursting at the seams due to a clash between the date sheets of board and non-board classes, government schools were seen struggling to accommodate students on Monday so much so that several students were made to sit on the cold and grimy floors to take the exam.
Class 10 and 12 students took the Punjabi board exam on Monday, while Classes 3, 4 and 9 sat for the mathematics exam; Classes 6 and 7 for English and science exams, respectively; and Class 11 students appeared for economics and chemistry exams, as per their stream.
At Government Senior Secondary School, PAU, hundreds of students were seen haunched over themselves as they struggled to write their exam without a table to support their book on the basketball court and the backyard of the school. Not only were floors coated with a thick layer of dust, but the area was unhygienic with a pool of stagnant muddy water in close vicinity.
Irate parents said that the least the school authorities could have done was provide them with mats and carpets and have the area cleaned before seating the students.
Not enough invigilators
Teachers blamed lack of infrastructure and shortage of teachers for the decision to seat students on the floors. A teacher, requesting anonymity, said, “We have seven sections for Class 6 students, and around 70 students study in each section. During exams, two students cannot be seated together to take their exam. Therefore, the entire class was made to sit on the floor”, said a teacher.
“To make matter worse, the education department deputed 40 teachers from GSSS, PAU, schools for exam duty and provided inadequate replacements. Of the remaining teachers, a few were busy with election duty, which made it hard to invigilate the exam. Two teachers were deputed to monitor the Class 6 students,” said a teacher.
A senior official in the local education department, who did not wish to be named, said the board should not have clashed the exam dates of board and non-board classes, which ultimately led to chaos in schools.
Meanwhile students of class 11th had to wait for a long outside the gate of the PAU school since they were only allowed to enter the exam centre after class 10th students finished their exams.
The situation was no different in GHS Giaspura as students of classes 6th, 7th and 9th were seated around the school grounds because of inadequate number of supervisors.
“There are six sections each of classes 6th and 7th in the school and we have five sections for Class 9 students. Our 18 teachers from the school are busy with the board duties in other schools. With mere 12 teachers available in the school we had to make the students seated together in the ground on the mats,” a teacher from the GHS, Giaspura, said.
Class 11 exam delayed
“Our exam was supposed to start at 11:45am but we were kept waiting outside the school gates till 12:30pm,” a Class-11 student said.
This is the first time PSEB students received multiple-choice questions in board exams, and the exams have been divided into two terms of 50 marks each.
Karamjit Kaur, a Class 10,student said the MCQ pattern made the exam easy and quick.
Another Class 10 student, Siman Deep Kaur, said that a thorough reading of the chapters was required so as to choose the right answer in the examination.
