Odisha govt announces reforms in matric exam

BHUBANESWAR: The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) on Thursday announced major changes in the examination pattern of matriculation examination. From this year there will be four sets of objective question papers and students have to secure at least 15 marks each in both subjective and objective papers to pass in a subject.
"Students will introduce four different sets of objective question papers keeping the difficulty level same, which they will answer in OMR sheets.The objective type questions will be application oriented and test the problem solving, analytical, logical and reasoning skills of students. The subjective paper will remain unchanged," said president of the board, Jahanara Begum. Currently students are appearing 50 marks of objective type questions in OMR sheets and 50 marks of subjective type questions on each subject.
Worried over the deteriorating standards of students compared to their counterparts in other boards, the state government has formed a committee to recommend reforms in the examination and evaluation system of the matriculation examination.
"As per the recommendations of the committee we have proposed to abolish OMR sheets from 2020 academic session. Students will have to answer in words using their minds as there will be no options, instead of circling the dots. We are very hopeful that this will work in improving the standards of students passing the matric exam and enable them to compete with students of other boards," Begum said.
However, students who are currently in class IX will appear the examination as per the new examination pattern that will be introduced in 2020. Though the students will appear the examination with 50 percent objective and 50 percent subjective type questions, there will be no OMR sheet or multiple choice questions, she pointed out.