Ban on shoes and socks, Bihar School Examination Board students to write exams in slippers

More than 16 lakh students in Bihar took the Class 10 Board examination on Thursday wearing slippers - in line with a government order aimed at checking rampant cheating. The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) notified that students wearing shoes and socks will not be allowed to enter the examination centres.

A total of 16,60,609 students appeared for the exams at 1,418 centres across the state. The exams end on February 28.

The BSEB also banned erasers and blades and asked the students to enter the examination centres 10 minutes ahead of time.

According to officials, for the first time, the students would get their roll number, name and other details printed on the answer sheets.

Authorities imposed prohibitory orders banning the assembly of five or more people in a 200-metre area around every examination centre. Security forces were deployed to prevent cheating.

"We have installed CCTV cameras and ordering videography and live webcasting of examination centres," said the official. 

Read: India Moves Up In 2019 Global Education Rankings As 25 Institutes Figure In Top 200 List

Earlier, CBSE Chairman Anita Karwal had a message for students ahead of board exams.

"Let your mind’s ‘web browser’ be “loose”, “download” competencies and life skills, “firewall” all distractions while concentrating on studies and treat exams as URLs of your lives."

The CBSE Class 12 exams are beginning on Friday and will conclude on April 3, while Class 10 exams will begin on February 21 and end on March 29. Seeking to connect with students in the tech lingo they are so familiar with, the CBSE chief said, “Face your books and ‘insta’ your studies and let the hashtag ‘studentunstoppable’ trend”.

“The schooling years are the best years for scholarship and education because students’  ‘hard disc’ space is the most receptive in these years. You should let your mind’s ‘web browser’ loose and ‘download’ several life competencies and life skills,” Karwal said in a letter to students.

“There are ‘messengers’ (mentors) to help you identify the ‘spams’ and Ensure the ‘bandwidth’ of learning is fast and vast. Don’t forget you have multiple options such as ‘autocorrect’, ‘backspace’, ‘pause’, ‘shift’ or ‘delete’ to add value to education,” she said.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Chief advised students to “firewall” all distractions for the time being and let fun and games go to the ‘random access memory’, while stressing that exams should not be a measure of one’s success or failure.

“Exams are like ‘Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of your lives that are meant to help you locate the real possibilities and resources that lie within you by optimising your knowledge ‘search engine'”, she said. “In the future you will not even remember the marks you get now but let the days you spend working hard for exams be ‘router’ for a fulfilling life,” Karwal said.

(With inputs from PTI)