Madhyapur Thimi, March 16:

The Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) said it had already completed preparations for the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams scheduled to begin on March 25. Birendra Kumar Jha, examination controller, told The Himalayan Times, “We have finished preparations for the examinations.” He also said over 100 examination centres had been added this year due to a rise in the number of examinees.

According to Jha, there will be 1,403 examination centres across the nation while there were 1,299 centres last year.

Govinda Prasad Bhattarai, deputy examination controller, said 422,884 students (357,472 regular and 65,412 exempted) will appear in the exams this year. The number is up by 15.2 per cent than the number last year. Last year, 367,041 (307,078 regular and 59,963 exempted) students had appeared in SLC exams.

Bhattarai said Janak Sikshya Samagri Kendra (JSSK) had been assigned to print and dispatch the answer sheets to all examination centres while the question papers were printed in India. He said answer sheets had already been dispatched to over 50 districts even as the dispatch had faced some hurdles due to the strikes. “JSSK has assured that it would transport the answer sheets to the remaining districts within a few days. Answer sheets and question papers will be sent to the centres within the Valley on the same day or a day before the examination,” he said.