Ludhiana, March 1: Imagine being anxious about the first day of exams, and that too the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Class 12 Boards, and then reaching the examination hall to find that you have to sit on the floor to write your English paper.
For students who had their examination centre at the Government Senior Secondary School, Talwandi Rai in Raikot, the first day could not have started off on a worse note.
No seating arrangements had been made for them and they had to sit on the floor on mats as no benches were available.
Authorities who had to fit 534 PSEB Class 12 students from private schools in its 10 classrooms also had to declare a half-day holiday for its other students there was no extra space left for regular classes.
School principal Balwinder Kaur said she had done her best. “We have made our best efforts to accommodate the students and deputed all our school staff on examination duty. We informed the district education officer regarding the problem but were told to manage the arrangements on our own. We could accommodate some students in classrooms but some had to be seated on mats placed in the corridors,” she added.
The situation was no different in other schools. A visit to the Government High School, Sarabha Nagar, at 11am revealed that to accommodate 234 students, the school had vacated its classrooms and its own students were sitting outdoors studying.
The school sent home students of classes 6,7 and 8 after serving them midday meals as the Class 12 Board exam started at 2 pm, school principal Kusum Lata said. “However, two teachers will take classes of students in Classes 9 and 10 on the first floor,” she said
Meanwhile, several schools such as Government Senior Secondary School, Sarabha Nagar, were forced to borrow benches from primary schools close by for the exams as they did not have enough benches of their own. However, Government Model Senior Secondary School, Cemetery Road, bought new benches to accommodate 234 Class-12 students.
The board sent an email to the district education office at 12.55pm regarding the list of observers on examination duty. The same list was sent to all schools to enable teachers to reach the examination centres for duty on time, but botch ups continued. A teacher who reached a government school in Jagraon for exam duty at 2.30 pm was told it was not an examination centre.
Several other teachers also had a tough time reaching examination centres 15 to 20 km away from their homes.
Source Hindustan Times
