Lack of clarity in instructions saw students of government schools line up at their institutions to collect the hall ticket for Class X examinations, while the students of private schools got to download it, without having to go to their schools on Friday.
While the Directorate of Government Examinations released the Class X hall tickets on Thursday, the government schools in the district called their students on Friday to receive a copy of the hall tickets. A headmistress of a government school in Coimbatore city said that only 10 students were allowed in a class room to receive the hall tickets in multiple time slots, in an effort to avoid crowding as a COVID-19 preventive measure. “We issued two masks per student along with their hall tickets,” she said, adding that a third mask will be kept as a spare mask for the students in case if they failed to bring it during the examinations. All the students came to the school with their parents, wearing masks, and there were no complaints, the headmistress said.
On the other hand, all the private schools instructed their students to download a copy of their hall tickets from the Directorate of Government Examinations website (www.dge.tn.gov.in) by entering their respective examination roll number and date of birth. “We are not compelling them to come to the schools for collecting their hall tickets,” said R. Visalakshi, president of Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association. All schools have been asked to download two copies of the hall tickets and issue one to the students. “As the students will write the examinations in their own schools (548 examination centres in the district), they may also collect their hall tickets on the day of examination,” Ms. Visalakshi said.
A school education official in the district said government schools called the students to issue the hall ticket in person because many students might not have computers or internet connections at home to download the hall ticket. Instructions regarding COVID-19 precautionary measures as well as transport arrangements were also given to the students in government schools while issuing the hall ticket, the official said.