The much-anticipated State school examinations for Classes 10 to 12 kicked off with vocational higher secondary examinations for Plus One and Plus Two classes on Tuesday morning. The SSLC examinations will begin with the Mathematics paper in the afternoon.
As many as 56,345 Plus One and Plus Two students are appearing for the examinations in 389 examination centres across the State. While the Plus One students are taking the Entrepreneurship Development paper, for the Plus Two students, it is Entrepreneurship Development/GFC.
Extensive arrangements have been made by the General Education Department for the pending examinations with the cooperation of the Health Department, police, local self-government institutions, parent-teacher associations and others.
Disinfected classrooms and campuses have been arranged for the students. They were welcomed to the school premises with infrared thermometers for thermal scanning and sanitisers, before being directed to classrooms, with only 20 students seated in one hall.
Schools had taken steps to ascertain travel plans of each student individually. Besides personal vehicles, school buses, and Kerala State Road Transport Corporation services, boats and vehicles of other departments such as Forest were also used to ferry children to the exam centres.
Special arrangements, such as separate classrooms and sanitised corridors (red channel), have been made for students from outside the State and those in quarantine to sit for the examinations.
State Police Chief Loknath Behera has directed that parents should drop off students 100 m ahead of the school gates and return home rather than wait near the centres. They will not be allowed inside the schools.
