Students come out after appearing for the National Rural Talents Search examination in Bhubaneswar on Sunday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: More than 13,000 students of Oriya medium schools appeared for the annual National Rural Talent Scholarship (NRTS) examination today. The exam was conducted at 95 centres across the state. The scholarship is meant for students who have taken admission to class VIII this year.

Each of the candidates had to appear for two examination papers. Each of those tests was of one hour and 30 minutes.

In the first exam from 7:30am to 9am, they appeared for MIL, history, civics and geography while paper II consisted of mathematics and general science. The second test was held between 10am and 11:30am.

The question papers for these exams were prepared by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) - Orissa and all the questions were objective ones. Candidates had to mark the answers on the OMR (optical mark recognition) paper.

The board also tabulates the marks of the students in both the papers and sends a copy of the register to the circle level committee to select scholars on the basis of merit or merit-cum-poverty for awarding the scholarship.

Those who have failed the NRTS exam earlier or were detained in class VI or VII, were not eligible to appear for the exam.

Candidates applying for the scholarship must not be over 15 years of age while the age limit of those belonging to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe categories was 16 years.

“A total of 13,384 students from across the state applied for the scholarship this time. We only prepare the questions and evaluate the answer sheets. The district inspectors of schools are given the responsibility of conducting the exams,” said BSE president Satyakam Mishra.

The exam was earlier scheduled to be held on July 24 but was put off by two weeks since many students were not aware of the scholarship scheme.

“Initially, the response was quite low and so the last date for filling up the form was extended. As a result, the exam also had to be postponed,” said an officer of the school and mass education department.