Over 8,00,000 students will write the higher secondary examinations at away centres (not in their respective schools) across West Bengal from Tuesday.
The exams will continue till March 27.
The HS exams, conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, were not held in 2021 because of the Covid pandemic. In 2020, the examinees wrote most of the papers before the campuses were shut down as a precaution against Covid.
The school-leaving exams were held last year but based on a truncated syllabus and the students wrote the papers in their respective schools.
The 2023 exams will be held across 2,349 venues. Tuesday’s paper is first language.
The HS council on Monday issued an advisory that says candidates must carry admit cards to the venue on each test day and produce them when asked by the invigilator or any other official deputed by the council.
Each day’s test will be of three hours and will start at 10am.
Candidates have been advised to reach the venue one hour before the exam starts on the first day and 30 minutes in advance on the other days.
“Candidates are required to sit for the examination at venues allotted to them. They are required to take their allotted seats at least 10 minutes before the scheduled time of commencement of the examination,” says the advisory uploaded on the council’s website.
The candidates have been advised against carrying mobile phones or any other electronic gadgets, including smartwatches, to the venue. The bar does not apply to calculators with trigonometric, logarithmic and exponential functions.
“Any candidate if found carrying a mobile phone or any of the above gadgets (electronic gadgets including smartwatch) then his/her registration may be cancelled,” says the advisory.
Council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said they would use hand-held radio frequency identification device (RFID) to detect the use of mobile phones or any other electronic gadgets in 206 highly sensitive examination venues out of 2,349.
“Parents or guardians... are not allowed to enter the examination venue,” the advisory says.
