On her way to the Assembly on Tuesday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee stopped outside United Missionary Girls’ High School in Bhowanipore where guardians were waiting anxiously as their children wrote their state secondary examinations (Madhyamik) inside.

She reached the school around 1.30pm and asked the guardians whether their sons and daughters were having a good examination.

Madhyamik started on February 10.

On Tuesday, the children wrote their geography paper.

Mamata told the guardians that the state government had ensured that those writing the Class X boards were awarded marks generously to compete with students from the Delhi boards, known for their high scores.

“During our time it was tough to get a good score. Now this has been changed. Now students can score 80 to 90 per cent on average. If this is not done, our students will not be able to compete with those from the CBSE and the ICSE boards at the national level,” the chief minister told the guardians.

“I always say that the questions should not be set tough,” Mamata said

On Monday, the state secondary education board announced that evaluation for some of the questions in the mathematics paper in this year’s Madhyamik “shall be done favourably” following complaints that some of the questions were “out of the syllabus and tough”.

In Madhyamik multiple-choice and short-answer type questions are being set in increasing numbers so the students can score more.

A board official said that the decision to increase the number of multiple-choice and short-answer questions was also aimed at encouraging students to study the entire syllabus thoroughly.

At the plus-II level, the examination has been split into four semesters from last year where the students are being tested on multiple-choice questions so they can score high scores on par with the students of the other boards.

The state higher secondary council had asked examiners last year to “shed any unnecessary rigidity” while awarding marks so that board examinees are not “deprived” of the scores they “deserve”.

An official of the education department said the apparent reason for all these decisions was to improve Bengal students’ chances of getting admitted to undergraduate colleges of their choice, where they often lose out to their peers from other boards that are perceived as more generous in awarding marks.

The chief minister greeted the parents while speaking to them on Tuesday.

She sought to know from them, students of which schools were writing their board examinations at the Bhowanipore school.

Examinees from five schools are writing their examinations at United Missionary Girls’ High School. She enquired about the seating arrangements.

A student touched Mamata’s feet after she came out of the school.

“Don’t ever scold the students. Everything will be fine,” she told the guardians.

When the school’s headmistress came out and greeted the chief minister, Mamata said her niece Arpita Banerjee used to be a student at the United Missionary Girls’ High School, a 192-year-old institution.

She sought to know from the teachers waiting at the school’s gate whether the school was being painted.

When the teachers urged the chief minister to come inside the school premises to take stock of the painting work that was going on, she refused to go because the board examination was on.