Srinagar, Nov 15: Despite the over four-month unrest, opposition from separatists and fear of appearing unprepared for exams, nearly 95% students across Kashmir took their Class XII board examinations on Monday.
“Out of 31,964 students enrolled for appearing in the examination, 30,213 appeared in today’s (Monday) paper at 484 exam centres across the Valley,” Zahoor Ahmad Chatt, chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education, told reporters.
He said 98% students appeared in the exams in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, which remained the epicentre of the ongoing unrest. Authorities had made elaborate security arrangements for the smooth conduct of the examinations as there was apprehension of violence.
Among the students who opted for the November session instead of March, despite schools remaining closed for four months, were thousands of girls. “Who would miss the opportunity of 50% rebate in syllabus?” one girl told DH outside Kothi Bagh Higher Secondary School in Srinagar.
“We had not even covered 50% of the syllabus. It is an effort on our part to take the exam for 50% syllabus,” Saba, another student, said.
Nearly one lakh students are scheduled to take the boards, amid heightened security arrangements. Over the past month, a debate was raging on whether the exams should be held now or in March.
While the government was for holding the exams in November, some of the students, backed by separatist groups, were protesting against the decision and wanted it to be conducted in March.
The government, however, said that those students who are unable to appear for the exams in November can take it in March, but with the full syllabus.
The schools in the Valley went on a two-week summer holiday on July 1, but could not resume functioning due to the unrest, which was triggered following the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
More than 30 schools have been torched over the past two months. Most of the buildings were gutted mysteriously after the state government started, in futility, efforts to resume school and college work.
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