Matriculation and intermediate examinations, affiliated to the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC), got off to a peaceful start on Wednesday with music, anthropology and economics.
Around 100 matriculate examinees from across the state answered their music paper while 6,000 intermediate arts examinees appeared in anthropology and 88,000 more intermediate science and commerce appeared in economics.
The papers were postponed by a day because of the 48-hour Maoist bandh that ended on Tuesday.
The first exam sitting was held between 9.45am and 1pm while second was from 2pm to 5.15pm.
JAC officials said over seven lakh students would be appearing in 1,392 examination centres across the state, 4.50 lakh matric examinees across 934 centres and 3.25 lakh intermediate counterparts in 458 centres.
Strict patrolling is on in all centres, with Section 144 imposed to prevent untoward incidents.
JAC chairman Arvind Prasad Singh said he personally inspected a few examination centres in the state capital such as St Anne Girls High School, Ursuline Convent and Carmel School - some equipped with CCTV cameras - and found them peaceful.
"There was no report of students being expelled. Exams on the first day were fairly and peacefully held," JAC chairman Singh said.
On a low-key first day, Singh conceded the matriculation music paper had very few examinees, but added that in intermediate they had a good number of students who sat for economics.
The matriculation exam will conclude on March 2 while intermediate one will end on March 8.
A teacher in East Singhbhum said they were expecting better results this year.
"From mock tests conducted by the Jharkhand Academic Council to a host of extra classes, revision, remedial lessons and special help for the weaker students, practising model questions in a time-bound manner, I'd say both the teachers and students have worked extremely hard. We do expect better results in both the board exams this year," the teacher added.
His district's education officer, Mukesh Kumar Sinha agreed that they did hope for a better performance.
"We have tried our level best to help both teachers and students. We expect the pass percentage of both matriculation and intermediate to cross 80 per cent this year."
Thursday promises to be a biggie for matriculate examinees, who will sit for their maths paper.
Intermediate examinees will appear in Hindi and English language papers.
