A total of 8.76 lakh students across Karnataka will take the Class 10 or Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations for the current academic year on Monday and again on July 22, as per the schedule released earlier.

The two-day schedule set by the Karnataka State Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB), includes the first exam on July 19 for the core subjects -- Science, Mathematics and Social Science and the exam for languages will be held on July 22.

The duration of the Class 10 examinations has been reduced to three hours for all the subjects and the examinations will be held on the OMR (Optical Mark recognition or Optical Mark Reading) sheets, where students will be asked simple and direct questions.

SSLC students
File Photo of Class X students taking the board examIANS

The OMR sheets will be of different colours so that there is no confusion among students while appearing for the examinations. The evaluation process is expected to be faster this year as there is no conventional method involved in finalizing the marks of the students.

During this academic year, a total of 8.76 lakh students have registered for the Class 10 examinations. Even though various state boards across the country have already cancelled their board examinations owing to the pandemic situation, Karnataka opted out of this option.

Already promoted last year

Karnataka is among the few states which have decided to conduct board examinations this year as incumbent batch of SSLC students were promoted from Class 9 to Class 10 owing to the pandemic situation last academic year.

Karnataka Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar claimed that in absence of proper yardstick to assess the abilities of students, the state is forced to conduct this year's annual examination. In view of the current Covid situation, the state government has arranged transportation for children to reach the examination centres.