‘There could be single invigilator in exam hall instead of two’

PRAYAGRAJ: Instead of usual two, there could be just one invigilator in a room to monitor conduct of the exam in the 2021 UP Board examination.

This will happen if there is shortage of teachers for invigilation duties because of the need to increase the number of examination halls by seating fewer examinees owing to the corona crisis, said state education department officials.

In order to maintain social distancing, a major change has been made in the process of making exam centres and duly incorporated in the state government approved UP Board Intermediate and High school exam2021 centre allotment policy, they explained.

Officials share that on 2021 UP Board exams, each centre will have a minimum allocation of 150 students and a maximum of 800 students. In previous years, there were up to 1200 students in one exam center. Likewise, each student would be given 36 square feet of space instead of 20 square feet.

According to the UP Board standards, a room is 500 square feet would have seating arrangement for a maximum of 14 or 15 children. In this way there would be enough space between two students while following the concept of social distancing.

Thus, the number of centres is expected to increase from 7,783 in 2020 to around 14000 in 2021. Therefore, there could be shortage of teachers for such a large number of exam centers.

In particular, there may be problem in terms of conducting the exams as per the old norm of having two invigilators per for compulsory and popular subjects like Hindi, English, science, social science, etc. which would have large number of students appearing in high school.

Keeping this in view, the Board has made provision this time that in view of the unavoidable circumstances / Covid-19 pandemic, the rule of minimum two invigilators in each room could be relaxed and the board could deploy one invigilator per room if sufficient numbers of teachers are not available.

“We would be following all the set norms and protocols laid down in view of Covid-19 pandemic including safe social distancing between two students in the board exams,” said secretary UP Board, Divyakant Shukla.

Meanwhile, the officials at district level have sent the report of physical verification of schools to the board for identification of board exam centers. The board had sought the report by December 26.

The board will release the list of exam centers for 2021 exams, including student allocation, by January 11. Objections on this list at district level will be updated by February 4. The final list of centers will be released by around February 9, say officials.