Bhubaneswar: With the annual High School Certificate (HSC) Examination scheduled to be held later than usual in 2027, the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha, on Saturday said that the revised schedule will neither delay the declaration of results nor affect Plus II admissions.President of BSE, Odisha, Srikant Tarai said the matriculation examination, which usually concludes by March 5, will be held from March 12 to 27 next year. The results will be declared well ahead of the Plus II admission process, he said.The examination schedule for seven subjects has been drawn up to provide one or two days’ gap between papers, giving students adequate time for revision, Tarai added.In another move to help students prepare better, the board will release Pariksha Darpan, a comprehensive examination guide and model question bank prepared by the BSE and Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA), later this month. Usually, the guide and question bank are distributed among students in Jan every year.“These steps are also aimed at reducing dropout rate and absenteeism,” Tarai said.Exam-day absenteeism has remained a persistent concern for the board. The BSE data from the last two academic sessions show that nearly 8,000 students each year, despite filling up forms to appear for the examination, remained absent.With panchayat elections and Phase II (Population Enumeration) of Census-2027 also likely to take place around the same time next year, the board has initiated discussions with officials associated with both exercises. Tarai said preliminary discussions had been held to ensure that neither process disrupted the examination.The board has also extended the deadline for filling out examination forms to Nov 21 in the wake of Cyclone Arnab. The process, which began on Nov 2, was scheduled to end on Nov 16.The examination will be conducted in a single morning shift instead of two shifts, keeping in mind the possibility of high temperatures in March. Security arrangements will be made as per standard operating procedures, while the board will take additional steps to prevent malpractice, as was done during HSC-2026, Tarai said. The last matriculation examination had reported zero malpractice cases owing to heightened frisking and appointment of independent observers for each exam centre.Close to 5.5 lakh students are expected to write the examination next year.