Chaos prevails at class X, XII quarterly exams

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There was chaos in several schools in the city on Wednesday as they fell short of the common question papers prepared by the directorate of government examinations for the first time for the quarterly class X and XII examinations to prepare students to write their board examinations.

The principal of a private matriculation school in the city, Ms Shanthi, said although it had submitted the list of candidates appearing for the quarterly examination to the authorities concerned a long time ago, it received less than the number of question papers required on Wednesday. “When our teachers approached the officers for the question papers (language) they gave them only a few class XII question papers,” she said.

A private school teacher, Ms Sivasankarai, said her school did not receive class X question papers. “With less than an hour to go for the examination, we were asked to take the question paper from the neighbouring school and photocopy it. But to our dismay the neighbouring school too had the same problem and so the office of the chief educational officer asked us to prepare our own question paper for our students,” she recounted.

The experience was nerve wracking for the already tense students. Said one student, R. Shravan, “The exam started one and a half hours late and we were not able answer all the questions as we were already tense and exhausted.”

12 namakkal schools get paper late

Tension prevailed in at least 12 schools in Namakkal district after the common question papers for the first term examinations arrived late in these schools. Sources said that the examination started only in the afternoon in some of the schools.

“While the question papers arrived late in some schools, in other schools the question papers that were sent were for a different subject that the one that was announced creaking a ruckus among students,” sources in the education department said.

Speaking to reporters, Namakkal district chief education officer P. Ponnaiah said that the question papers reached a few schools later than as expected as they had given wrong information on their locations. “As far as the question papers for wrong subjects being sent to schools, we have to investigate further,” he said.

Asked about the confusion, director of school education K. Devarajan confirmed the shortage of question papers. “We have asked the chief education and district education officers to visit all schools and prepare a report on the shortage. There was a clerical mistake in entering the number of question papers for each school, which resulted in the shortage. We will make sure there is no problem from tomorrow,” he assured.