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UDUPI: This year, 14,371, including 7,213 boys, will take the SSLC exams at 52 centres in the district. Students in the district are being given special training to get A and A + grades.

 Last year, Udupi lost the first place by 1.01% to Mangaluru and this year’s strategy is to provide overall education. Hence, SC /ST and weak students were given special training with the option to stay at residential schools. The department is concentrating on increasing the pass percentage rather than getting first place.

 Ramchandra Raje Aras, education officer, Udupi, said, "Special classes are being conducted before and after regular classes. Though Saturday is a half-day, SSLC students were given classes till evening. The student who failed in the preparatory exams are considered non-complete students and they were given training by expert teachers under ’Prerana Shibira’. More than 10,000 students benefited by this progromme. Subjectwise special classes were given to students after analyzing the preparatory answersheet. Students were also given guided by Dr P V Bhandari through seminars about exam stress and overcome fear. They were guided how to write exams. To help students overcome the fear of exams, frequent tests were conducted this year."

 From October, SC/ST student were given special training by keeping them in a residential school for a week. Two programmes have been organized in the district. Schools with below 50% pass percentage are called ’red zone schools’, where people from the education department (subject inspectors are appointed as nodal officers) frequently visit and monitor their progress. We also talk to students and teachers and train teachers for result improvement. Under the leadership of the DDPI, a progress review meeting of all schools, private, aided and government, is held every month.

 There are total 52 centres / clusters in the district. Fifty government schools and two private schools (The Board of High School and St Cecily’s for private student). Earlier, two schools were put in one centre but now to control irregularities from happening in exam halls, clusters are made. These clusters will have schools in alphabetic order. More than seven schools are put in one cluster. This is a good measure to ensure quality results. However, some schools are given centres a bit far and this may have caused students some inconvenience.

 This year, the SSLC question paper and answersheet are given separately so that parents have access to questions asked and also reduce the bundle weight as high security is needed, he added.