Eight visually-impaired students are appearing in the class 10 board examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC), which started on Tuesday.

Students of St. Michael Netraheen High School (SMNHS), Bahu Bazar, Geeta Mahto, Baby Kumari, Punam Kumari, Kaushliya Kumari, Md Danish, Shankar Bhagat, Laxman Soy, Subhash Kumar, wrote their commerce papers at Bethesda Girls High School centre on Tuesday.

They, however, were helped by interpreter-cum-writer to understand the questions and write the papers.

JAC secretary Mahip Kumar Singh said as per provision, visually-impaired students, who want writer, need to submit their requisition to the centre superintendent 24 hours before the examination. Centre superintendent provides writer, who should be at least one class below the appearing student, he said.

The students appeared happy taking board examinations. Subhash Kumar said, “I did hard work of the examination. So, I hope scoring good marks.” Another students Geeta Kumari said, “I want to make my life different through education and would like to teach students like me in future.”

SMNHS principal MTP Agrwal said all students did hard labour for the board examination. “We are hoping students would set a milestone this year.”

She said SMNHS was the only school provides education up to board level to the visually impaired students in Ranchi. Students of this school taking the board examination since 2005 and the school achieved 100% results every year, she said.

More than 6.21 lakh students are writing the matriculation (class-10) and intermediate (class 12) examinations across 1,410 centres under strict vigilance of CCTV cameras in Jharkhand.

The day of the examination passed off peacefully, JAC officials claimed. JAC secretary said, “As per information we received till 6pm, no untoward incident reported from any parts of the state. Examination passed off peacefully in every centre.”

The matric exams began with commerce and home science papers, while intermediate started with vocational papers. Altogether 387,021 students would appear for the matric exams at 940 centres, while 234,363 students would take the intermediate examinations in 470 centres.

Ranchi district has registered number of students appearing for both matric and inter exams. While 32, 960 students are writing intermediate, while 34,080 are taking matric exams. The lowest students were recorded in Pakur. Mere 2,651 students are writing papers in intermediate, while 5,690 are appearing for matriculation exams.