UP Board Exams Begin On Thursday, 55 Lakh Plus Students To Appear At 8,265 Centers

Lucknow, February 21 (TNA) Starting from Thursday, the high school and intermediate institutional and individual examinations of the year 2024 will be begin simultaneously at 8,265 examination centers in the state. They will go on for a total of 12 working days and will end on March 9.

Before the year 2017, it used to take more than a month to complete these examinations. 1571184 high school boys and 1376127 girl students (total - 29,47,311) and 1428323 intermediate school students and 1149676 girl students (total - 25,77,997) will appear in the board examination. Out of total 55,25,308 candidates, 5360745 are institutional candidates and 164563 are individual candidates.

Due to effective prevention of cheating, 164563 students have been registered as individual candidates in the year 2024, whereas in 2017 this number was 3,53,106. Under this, instead of 1,50,209 candidates who registered from outside states in 2017, the number of candidates from outside states/other boards has also reduced to only 4905 in the year 2024.

The determination of examination centers by the present government was done online through software, making full use of their holding capacities. Before 2017, more than 12 thousand centers were formed, but due to the online center determination system, fewer examination centers were formed (8265 in the year 2024 examination), which made their supervision and inspection easier.

The process adopted in the past years has been further strengthened to make the board exams fair and free from cheating. At the state level, along with the Directorate of Secondary Education, Lucknow, Command and Control Centers have also been established in the Vidya Samiksha Kendra, Lucknow and Council Headquarters, Prayagraj and 05 regional offices, through which live monitoring of all the examination centers and district level control and monitoring centers of the state can be done.

For quick resolution of complaints of candidates and general public, 02 help numbers (1800 180 6607/8) and 02 help numbers (1800 180 5310/12) have also been established to resolve queries of candidates and for psychological counselling. Similarly, command and control centre, helpline and other arrangements have been made at the district level also. Through these, live monitoring of all the examination centers of the district will be done. An administrative officer nominated by the District Magistrate has been deployed to operate the District Control Centre.

To curb the possibilities of cheating, the process of opening the question papers will be done under the surveillance of CCTV cameras and arrangements have been made for armed forces and live CCTV cameras for 24-hour surveillance at the collection centers and strong rooms. Arrangements have been made for morning inspection of the strong room by a mobile team.

The district administration has been directed to take all other precautionary measures, including invoking Section 144 under the Code of Criminal Procedure, to prevent gathering of anti-social elements or outsiders within a radius of 100 meters around the examination centers and also outside it if necessary. Instructions have been given.

For the first time, about 3.11 lakh room invigilators deployed in examination halls have been issued computerized identity cards with secure QR code and number. For the first time also, apart from the QR code, serial number and logo on the cover page of the answer sheets, the council's logo on the inner page as well as the page number on each page along with stitched answer sheets in four different colors have been printed.

A Quick Response Team has been constituted which will monitor and take immediate action against efforts to mislead the general public and tarnish the image of the government by spreading misleading news on social media. Arrangements are being made to take action under the relevant rules against the room invigilators and personnel who remain absent from their duty to perform other duties during the board examination.

Based on the experiences of the past years, the Secondary Education Council has identified sensitive and highly sensitive examination centers (466/275) in 16 districts and special monitoring is being done through STF and Local Notification Unit to prevent any untoward incident. Arrangements have been made.

It is the priority of the government to conduct cheating-free examinations. If an attempt is made to transmit any question paper of that subject or any part of it or its solution through WhatsApp/social media or any other means before the end of the examination of any subject in the UP Board examination, then the UP Public Examination (Under Section 4/10 of the Prevention of Unfair Means Act-1998), strictest action will be taken against such punishable, cognizable and non-bailable criminal acts.

By coordinating with various departments, to provide transportation facilities to the students, board examination special buses, uninterrupted power supply during the examination period, cleanliness and sanitization of the examination centers and surrounding areas, arrangement of emergency first aid to the candidates/examination personnel. is also being done. Due to the intensive preparations done on a large scale and the action plan prepared by the police, administration and educational authorities to conduct the examinations smoothly.