Boards get off to a smooth start; Class 10, 12 papers give tricky questions a miss

AHMEDABAD: Class 10 and 12 exams of the Gujarat board got off to a smooth start on Monday with the papers containing mostly questions from the textbooks.
The students TOI spoke to said they were relieved to find no tricky questions in the papers. The Class 10 students took Gujarati, English and Hindi exams, Class 12 general stream students took the Elements of Accountancy exam, while Class 12 science students took the physics exam.
Teachers said the Class 10 Gujarati paper had at least seven grammatical errors. Mitesh Pathak, a teacher of Gujarati language, said that a few of his students found the grammar questions difficult.
English language teacher Chetan Kayastha said he did not receive any complaint from any of his students regarding the question paper. The students were asked to write essays on topics such as, ‘If I were air, how would I feel in the present environment of earth?’ and ‘Status of Women in India’.
Meanwhile, the office of Ahmedabad district education officer Rohit Chaudhary distributed 300 kits containing a writing board, a water bottle, pens and foot rules among students with disabilities.
In an act of compassion that won many hearts online, a cop from Gujarat University police station, Akash Makwana, helped a Class 12 student with disabilities exit the exam centre by carrying him on his shoulders. The centre, Mayur Higher Secondary School in Naranpura, did not have a ramp or a wheelchair facility. A video that has gone viral shows Makwana carrying the boy out of the centre and helping him sit on his father’s scooter. Elsewhere in the state, a student at a centre in Jamnagar was rushed to a nearby hospital in an ambulance after he fainted during the exam on Monday. After he recovered, he returned to the centre to complete the exam. A Class 12 general stream student was caught with a mobile at a centre in Mundra while another student was caught cheating in Bhavnagar, sources said.
Sources said that despite police bandobust and the presence of board officials, several school trustees visited their schools and were seen using their phones. The board prohibits school trustees from entering the school premises when exams are being conducted.
This year 15.38 lakh students are taking the boards.