The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) made tight security arrangements for this year's Madhyamik examination, which will begin on February 22.
The Secondary examination, controlled by WBBSE, will have strict vigilance to restrict the activities of mass copying and hall collections. The examination hall will be under a strong surveillance of invigilators. An invigilator will be present among every 20 students. Reliever invigilators will also be there to fill up for an invigilator who would go out of the hall.
This year, there may be a drop in the total number of students. The total number of students last year was around 11,44,000 but this year, it may drop to 10,72,000. The Madhyamik board administrator Kalyanmoy Ganguly explained the reason. "Every year, we have an addition of at least 10,000-15,000 students. This trend was also seen in 2015. But in 2016, there was a shift from the old syllabus to a new one. Thus, we got at least 1.5 lakh more students than 2015," said Ganguly.
"A huge section of the students sat for the examination on 2016 as they would get three extra years to re-appear in the examination if they do not clear the exam in 2016 which was the reason for the rush," Ganguly added. "As per the statistics, the numbers of the students have increased by 40,000-42,000 if we compare 2015 and 2017," he further said adding: "I am assuring a congenial environment to all the candidates."
The control-room phone numbers of the WBBSE are 033-23213811, 03323592269. The president of the board can be contacted 9051414111 and 03323213844. The deputy secretary (examination) could be reached to 03323213844 and 9433881670. The assistant secretary examination can be reached in 9748102214.