For the first time, a decision has been taken by the state government to make government-run, government-aided and unaided girls’ schools as exam centres on a priority basis, if they meet the criteria set for it in 2021, the 100th year of the UP Board’s foundation.
This will allow more girls to appear in the exam in their own schools, getting the benefit of self-centre policy, board officials said.
UP Board secretary Divyakant Shukla said that the board will allot centres to girls strictly as per the centre-allotment policy decided by the state government.
Citing the board exam centre allotment policy for 2021, officials explained that the decision means that in this pandemic-hit year, when the board is expected to significantly increase the count of exam centres across the state to ensure proper social distancing among the examinees, more schools will become exam centres.
“In such a scenario, chances of a girls’ school being made an exam centre increases manifold and all students of such schools will appear in the exam in their own schools, without having to travel to other institutions to just take the exams,” said a senior UP Board official.
On the other hand, even if a co-educational school is made an exam centre by UP Board, then too at least the girl students of such an institution would be assigned their own school to appear in the board exams as per the self-centre policy that was in place even in earlier years. This virtually means a double benefit that would see more girls appearing in the exam this year at their own schools than ever before, he added.
These old and new provisions would end up benefiting lakhs of girl students of class 10 and 12 in the 2021 examination, he further maintained.
The number of examination centres is estimated to be more than 12,000 this time. In such a situation, students will not have to travel long distances to take the exams. In the last few years, out of the total students registered for class 10 and class 12, the number of girl students has been around 44 to 45%.
UP Board conducted its first exam in 1923 that saw mere 5,655 students appearing in its high school exam and another 89 appearing in its intermediate exam. In 2020, the board witnessed over 5.43 million (54.3 lakh) students appearing in its examinations, including 2.95 million in high school and 2.48 million in intermediate exams at 7,783 exam centres spread across the 75 districts of the state.
