The annual Class 10 examination, conducted by J&K State Board of School Examination (JKBOSE), commenced from Wednesday amid COVID-19 safety measures, including maintaining social distance, officials said here.The examinations are the first offline education-related activity since the pandemic broke out in the valley in March this year.
They said 1.06 lakh students are expected to appear in the examination to be held at 1,145 centres in the valley. “Of the total aspirants, 74,446 are from Kashmir while around 32,000 are from Jammu winter zones,” they said.They said as many as 814 centres have been established in the valley and 331 in the winter zones of Jammu. “This year, the number of examination centres were almost doubled to maintain social distancing in view of COVID-19 pandemic,” they said.They said other COVID-19 safety measures are also in place to give a secure environment to the students. “Facemasks have been made mandatory for students and examiners in all the centres in the valley,” they said, adding all the examination centres were also fumigated to minimize the risk of infection. This year, the J&K government has given a relaxation of 40 per cent in the syllabus of class 10th examination in view of closure of educational institutes since March this year following outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of schools in March this year had comes as a setback for the students who resumed classed after seven months due to lockdown in Kashmir post abrogation of special status of erstwhile state of J&K and winter vacation from December to March