Odisha Matric exam from February 25
High school certificate (HSC) examination, conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, will be held from February 25 to March 9. This was announced by school and mass education minister Rabi Narayan Nanda on Tuesday.
According to board officials, examination of theory papers will end on March 8. Practical exam will be held on March 9. Over five lakh students will take the matriculation exam this time.
From this year onwards, the state government decided to introduce grade system in the examination instead of the prevailing division system of declaring results.
Sources at the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), which conducts the annual matriculation examination, said answer sheets of students will be evaluated on nine point grades like A (91-100), B (81-90), C (71-80), D (61-70), E (51-60), F (41-50), G (31-40), H (21-30) and I (11-20).
Besides, the board will introduce a new question pattern comprising both subjective and objective type questions for better evaluation of answer sheets.
While 50 per cent of the questions will comprise of multiple-choice questions, the remaining part will be subjective requiring long answers, said sources, adding answers of objective questions would be evaluated through optical mark recognition (OMR) method.
The board has decided to start a helpline to make students get acquainted with the new format and address their queries related to the exam. The facility will be launched in last week of December at the board office in Cuttack. A panel of experts will answer queries of students related to the new format and the lessons also. Along with students, even teachers can also avail help.
“We will notify the phone numbers of the helpline very soon,” said president of the board D P Nanda.
The panel will answer queries of the students from 11 am to 4 pm. “Initially, the helpline will function for five hours. If required we will increase the time limit,” said a board official. The panel will comprise teachers having experience of over 15 to 20 years.
