Class XII exams begin with slightly tough Tamil paper; absentees 6%

CHENNAI: The Class XII state board exams began on Monday with a moderately difficult Tamil paper that many found had unfamiliar and twisted one-mark questions. Other papers including French and Sanskrit were easy, said teachers. The number of absentees rose from 4% last year to 6%.
Of the 8,51,303 who registered, 49,559 (6%) were absent. Of the 8,901 private candidates, 1,115 (12%) didn't turn up. This increase, teachers said, was due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gurulakshmi, a student from the city, said the Tamil paper was easy except for the one-mark section. "It had questions from inside lessons and some unfamiliar questions. Other sections were easy," she said, adding that time management was also not an issue as she was able to answer all questions within the time.
Class XII students are writing a full syllabus for the first time after the pandemic. "Of the 14 questions in the one-mark section, only six were easy and the rest were unfamiliar. The weightage for prose and literature also was not equally distributed," said John, a teacher from a city school.
Overall, said Tamil teacher Malathi, the paper was an easy one. "Many questions from revision tests were asked in the board exam. The Tamil question paper was designed in a way that scoring up to 80% of marks would be easy, but scoring full marks would be tough," she said, adding that the slow learners would have struggled as the one-mark section was a bit tough.
Agnes Rita, a French teacher at a city school, said the question paper was easy. "It had many typographical errors. It could have been avoided," she said. Even the Sanskrit paper was easy, teachers said.
Others said that bringing the long absentees back to school was the main reason for the increase in absentees. "Many students who had started working during the pandemic were not regular coming to school.
The school education department allowed these students to register for the exams, even relaxing the attendance norms. However, it seems they have skipped the exams which resulted in an increase in absentees," said P Perumalsamy, state president of the Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Teachers Association.