Bengaluru: Amidst the Covid pandemic, the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) will hold SSLC exams -2021 on July 19 and 22. The government has decided to hold two-days exams due to anticipated third wave of covid pandemic. 

Science, Social science, and mathematics exams will be held on July 19, and language exams (Kananda, English Urdu and Hindi both first language and second languages ) will be conducted on July 22. Exams will start from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm. Hall tickets will be sent to respective schools by June 30, 2021, said Primary and Secondary Education Minister S.Suresh Kumar

The standard operative procedure has been issued to conduct SSLC exams. Section 114 prohibitory order will be in force in the radius of 200 meters of the examination center. Students have to fill the tick the answer in OMR sheets, training has been given to the students in this regard. 

Model OMR sheets have been circulated to all the students, there is no problem for the students to write exams in OMR sheets.

With all precautions, SSLC exams will be conducted, said primary and secondary education minister S. Suresh Kumar. Online classes will be commenced in all government and private schools from July 1, 2021. 

This year, 8, 76,581 students will write the exams, in 2020, 8.46 lakh students wrote SSLC exams. Under safe atmosphere exams will be conducted in 73,066 centers, for the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board has been making preparation on war footing manner to set up examination centers across the state.

Covid protocol will be strictly followed in conducting exams. Exams will be conducted by keeping 6 feet distance of sitting arrangement, good ventilators, compulsory wearing of masks, and installations of CCTV.

Covid tested positive students need to worry, they will be allowed to write exams from the nearest covid care centers. Even students suffering from any other aliments also can write the exams, separate arrangements have been made to them. If Covid positive students miss the exams, the board will make an arrangement for them to write re-exams, Mr. Suresh Kumar assured.

The thermal screening units will be installed at examination centers. The help of Asha workers will be taken to examine the students before they entering the examination halls. All staff at examination centers will be vaccinated. Students should sanitize their hands before and after entering examination halls. There is no compulsory wearing of N 95 masks, students can wear cloth masks.

In 2020, SSLC exams were conducted from June 26 to July 4. Without any untoward incident, the state government has conducted the exams and it was widely appreciated by all. However this year, there is an anticipation of the third wave in July, thus the state government has taken utmost care to conduct exams with taking necessary suggestions from Health and Family welfare department. Two-day exams will be held in objective type format, the minister explained.

Department has no intention to fail the students, question papers will be prepared taking into consideration of students' ability to answer objective type of questions. Department has provided model question papers to the students, if they have any confusion they can study the objective type of questions, Mr. Suresh Kumar said.

Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board director has directed all nodal officers, deputy directors, block education officers to set up examination centers based on students number in their respective districts. This time too, more teachers will be needed to conduct SSLC exams for invigilation.