The Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) has introduced three new provisions for the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations to minimise marking errors. A total of 574,685 students, including 145,183 in the exempted category, are sitting for the test which begins on Thursday.

The OCE has made it mandatory for all the examiners to write their names and sign in the answer sheets after marking the copies. The decision was made after the office found that more than 63 percent of mistakes in the SLC results were due to the negligence of the copy examiners. They were found to have committed multiple errors, including incorrect marking of answer sheets.

The office has also introduced ‘Control List System’ which allows examinees to tally their details on the office’s website and correct any mistakes. Generally, the results of those students with technical error in names, date of birth or subjects are categorised as withheld, absent or missing.

Starting this year, it has been made mandatory for the students to write their symbol number in the question papers to discourage cheating. “We have found students cheating by exchanging the question papers in the past. The new provision will help minimise cheating,” Dware said.

 For the first time in the test’s 80-year history, the girls have outnumbered the boys. More than half of the 426,214 examinees under the regular category or 213,710 girls are taking the exams this year. In another first, the results for technical subjects will be published under the grading system. As many as 3,288 students from 99 technical schools are appearing in the

exams that will conclude on March 20.

There are 1,862 exam centres, which will be supervised by as many superintendents and 2,440 assistant superintendents. According to the OCE, 27,930 security personnel have been deployed at the rate of 15 at each centre for this year, up from 10 last year.

Test in numbers

- Total examinees: 574,685

- Regular: 426,214

- Boys: 212,504

- Girls: 213,710

- Exam centres: 1,862

source: the kathmandu post,19 March 2015