More than 3.17 lakh students have skipped the high school and intermediate examinations in the first two days of the UP Board exams. On Tuesday, 2,39,133 examinees did not turn up to write their papers till 7 pm. But the figure swelled thereafter as the numbers poured in from remote districts.
On Wednesday, 1,359 examinees (including 112 high school and 1,247 intermediate students) did not turn up for the exam. An official said the number will increase further as figures from remote districts were being compiled.
Meanwhile, officials registered FIRs against one examinee, two principals and a manager in different police stations under the Anti-Copying Act during the second shift of the first day of the examination, said Neena Srivastava, secretary, UP Board.
As many as 44 examinees were caught copying in the first two days of the examination.
Last year, after the first two days of the examinations, only 40,392 students had skipped the papers. The figure included 20,674 students who did not turn up to write their paper on the first day in 2019.
In 2018, some 12.5 lakh examinees left the exam midway while in 2019 the number came down to 6.69 lakh examinees.
The high school examinations that commenced from Tuesday would conclude on March 3 in a record 12 days while the Intermediate examination that started on Tuesday would end on March 6, in a span of just 15 days.
For the first time, the UP Board has introduced four different sets of coloured and stitched answer sheets in about 18-20 districts marked as ‘sensitive’. Of these, two sets of coloured answer sheets are being used in high school examination in the identified districts while the other two are being provided to Class 12 examinees.
The coloured answer sheets, officials said, would deter examinees from getting their original answer sheets replaced with pre-written copies
