GUWAHATI: Open schooling has slowly emerged as a new alternative to class X state board examinations, with sources in the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (Seba), which conducts the state board exams, pointing out the number of students registered to appear in the exams this year has gone down by close to 30,000 as compared to last year.3,53,533 have registered to appear for the exams this year as compared to 3,80,733 students who had registered last year, with many attributing this sharp decline to more students who are opting for the open schooling system. According to the top official sources, the State Institute of Open Schooling (SIOS), that came into effect a couple of years ago, is being preferred more and more by students who could not pass their regular matriculation examination."Mostly students who are poor in studies prefer to appear in the SIOS exam through the open schooling mode, which is considered to be relatively easier. Extra care is taken for the candidates who appear in these exams," a senior Seba official told TOI.Though there has not been any study undertaken till now to explain this fall in number of students registered for the state board exams, Seba secretary Probin Sarma said, "This year, the board instructed schools to conduct two tests - a pre-test and a test - leading up to the class X board exams. Since aspiring candidates were supposed to sit for these two tests, I believe many students who were not well prepared decided to opt out finally."

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