The annual public examinations for class 10 students in Andhra Pradesh will be held from July 10. The examinations, originally scheduled to be held in the first week of March, were postponed due to elections to local bodies and subsequently because of the COVID-19 lockdown.
State Education Minister Audimulapu Suresh on Tuesday said that the public examinations for Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students would now be held from July 10 with all precautions for prevention of coronavirus spread.
"We have identified 4,154 examination centres across the state.Only 10-12 students will be accommodated in each examination room at these centres. We are also readying about eight lakh face masks for the students," the minister said at an official review meeting.
While sanitisers would be kept ready at all examination centres, the invigilators would be supplied hand gloves as part of coronavirus prevention measures. Also, 4,500 thermal scanners would be kept ready at the exam centres.
The minister said there would not be any exam centres in the identified containment zones.
"If any new cases are found anywhere and a particular area is earmarked as (new) containment zone, we will shift the examination centre to an alternative location. Officials have been directed to identify such alternative locations and keep them ready," Suresh said.
The minister said examinations for 'AP Open School' would also be conducted in a similar fashion with all necessary precautions.
They were opening 1,022 examination centres as against the previous 580 for open school exams, he added.
Usually, the SSC exams require students to appear for 11 papers. Due to COVID-19, the number of papers have been cut down to six -- First Language, Second Language, English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, in that order, from July 10 to 15. Each paper will be for 100 marks.
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