E-Paper
HSC, SSC Board seeks passes for evaluators to ensure timely results
The board in its appeal said that if the answer sheets are not evaluated within the stipulated time, it could lead to the delay in the results which are usually scheduled to be released in the first week of June.
The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) has appealed to the state government to provide special police permits to evaluators of answer sheets of Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and State Secondary Certificate (SSC) exams held in February and March.
With the country under the lockdown for over a month now due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only people covered under essential services such as doctors, policemen, select government and medical staff among others are allowed to move out on duty.
The board in its appeal said that if the answer sheets are not evaluated within the stipulated time, it could lead to the delay in the results which are usually scheduled to be released in the first week of June.
“Currently, 80 per cent of HSC and around 60 per cent of SSC answer sheets are been checked and rest are remaining. Teachers who are checking the papers need to submit their answer sheets to their respective divisional board offices, but due to the lockdown they have not been able to go out. Specially in the rural parts teachers are having issues of coming outside their homes and submit the answer sheets. So, we have demanded that in each district, four centres should be opened where teachers can submit the answer sheets,” said Ashok Bhosale, secretary of MSBSHSE.
“Our efforts are going on to complete this paper checking and evaluation procedure within the time and for that we have sent a proposal to the state government requesting them to allow teachers out for this official work. Teachers should be given necessary permission passes so that they won’t face any police action,” added Bhosale.
This year around 17 lakh students have appeared for SSC exams across the state, out of which 9 lakh answer sheets have been checked. For HSC around 14 lakh students has appeared out of which 11 lakh answer sheets have been checked. Every year normally in the first week of June HSC results are declared and within next one week SSC results are declared by the state board.
HSC exams were held from February 18 to March 18 and all the exams of HSC from different streams – Arts, Commerce and Science - were completed. The SSC exams were scheduled from March 3 to 23, but the last paper of Social Science part II (Geography) was cancelled by the state education department due to Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the vocational subject exams of SSC which were to be held between March 24 to April 4 were cancelled. Both the HSC and SSC exams were held across nine divisions of MSBSHSE - Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Konkan, Latur, Aurangabad, Amravati and Kolhapur.
No decision has been taken about the marking system for the cancelled Geography paper. The ‘Best of Five’ formula may be implemented this year and the average scores will be declared, said officials.
