BENGALURU: Students writing the second-year pre-university (PU) exams, starting on Friday, can use bilingual words, wherever necessary, in their answer sheets, in case they find it difficult to express themselves in just one language.

The department has extended this option this year, although it was available during the 2018 exams, but was opposed by evaluators, saying it caused confusion during evaluation.

However, bilingual usage will be restricted only to words. Clarifying this, S R Umashankar, principal secretary, Department of Primary and Secondary Education, said, “If a student who has chosen English as a medium to write his/her exams finds some word difficult to explain, then he/she can write it in Kannada, in brackets.”

This year, a total of 6,73,606 candidates are appearing for the second-year PUC board exams at the 1,013 examination centres across the state. For the first time, the department has not revealed details of sensitive and super-sensitive exam centres.

As per information provided by the department, these exam centres are equipped with CCTV cameras to avoid any kind of malpractice. Soon after exams are completed, evaluation work will begin at 54 evaluation centres. According to department data, the number of candidates appearing for this year’s examinations has decreased by 12,100 compared to 2018.

POINTS TO NOTE

Circulating question papers even electr-onically will be considered a criminal activity
In case a student or the public get any question paper or a set of questions, these must be brought to the notice of the police and department
CCTV and motion sensors at treasuries where question papers are kept
CCTVs at all examination centres
Live streaming from CCTVs at treasuries to director’s office 24x7
No electronic gadget allowed inside exam centres

Students paying for mistakes by principals

Though registration for second year pre-university final exams was started a few months ago, there are over 2,000 students who have approached the board till the last minute requesting for registration and corrections. According to officials from the department of pre university education, most of those cases were due to the negligence by  principals of the concerned colleges and department said that it will initiate action against such colleges. Department officials say, “Some principals have entered wrong data and are now asking for correction of the same.”