Students advised to reach centers an hour early for Higher Secondary examinations
Telegraph | 27 February 2025
Students appearing for the state Higher Secondary examinations must enter their centres an hour before the start.
The examinations start at 10am.
The Class XII school leaving examinations start on March 3 and will continue till March 18.
The early-arrival notice has been issued because candidates in all the 2,100 examination centres across the state will be frisked with metal detectors to prevent them from entering the centre smart devices, like phones and smartwatches.
The president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya, said on Wednesday that till last year students had to enter the examination centres half an hour before the start of examinations.
“This time, the candidates must enter the halls an hour before the start. We have tweaked the schedule so those guarding the centres get enough time to frisk the students with hand-held metal detectors. Frisking candidates with metal detectors, we hope, will prevent the use of phones or smartwatches or any other devices during the examinations,” Bhattacharya told Metro.
Last year, the council used metal detectors at only 176 centres earmarked as sensitive among the 2,341.
Forty-one students were caught with phones inside the examination centres and were barred from writing the school-leaving examinations.
“This year all the 2,100 centres have been brought under the ambit of surveillance through hand-held metal detectors,” council secretary Priyadarshini Mallick said.
The council has bought the metal detectors for ₹85 lakh.
As many as 5.09 lakh candidates will write the HS examinations this year. The number was over 7.5 lakh last year.
A council official said that in the just-concluded Madhyamik (secondary) examinations (ended on February 22), where the candidates were not scanned with metal detectors, 20 students were caught with mobile phones or smartwatches.
Among them, one allegedly used an AI app to solve mathematics questions before he was caught.
On March 1, 2024, education minister Bratya Basu said he wanted hand-held metal detectors at “more” higher secondary examination centres from 2025 to prevent “electronic cheating”.
The conventional HS examinations will be held for the last time this year. The Plus II course was split into four semesters from the 2024-25 academic year.
The first batch enrolled in semesteised Plus II course last year will write their Class XII final examinations in 2026.
The council president said they will unpack the sealed question papers in front of examinees.
“Till last year we would unpack the questions in the office of the head of the institutions. Now, we’d do like in the competitive examinations and unpack the packets at the exam centres. We want to strengthen the security measures as much as possible” council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said.
Despite all these measures if a student is caught using prohibited devices, his or her entire examinations will be cancelled, the council said.