A total of 16,39,172 students will appear for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams, which will start on Tuesday. Taking a cue from the ongoing leaks in Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams, the board has decided to take a strict stand about late entry by students. “If you are late at reaching your exam centre, you are already a suspect in any potential copy case. Instead, it is important for students to reach on time and save themselves from the thorough checking,” said Subhash Borse, Secretary of the Mumbai Division of Maharashtra State Board.
The board’s strict approach is due to copying cases found during the ongoing HSC examinations in which images of question papers went viral on messaging apps. Students arriving late at exam centres will not be allowed to sit for the exams without permission from the divisional board office, which will involve a thorough checking.
Of the 16,39,172 students appearing for the paper across Maharashtra, 8,89,584 are boys and 7,49,478 are girls. Exams will be held in 21,384 centres. In the Mumbai division, a total of 3,73,840 students will sit for the examination.
This year, several student-friendly measures have already been introduced, considering the high-stress levels among the aspirants. The measures include having own school as an exam centre, additional time to complete the paper, reduced syllabus, distributing question paper 10 minutes before the exam starts. All these measures are due to a year’s gap in board exams because of the pandemic. The last SSC examination was held in March 2020, before the Covid-19 outbreak.
In 2021, the exam was cancelled due to a heavy increase in Covid cases around the same time. The results were declared based on the internal assessment as well as marks obtained by students in previous academic years.
