Nearly 18,000 students did not turn up for the ongoing summative assessment-II of the Class X board exam conducted by the Odisha Board of Secondary Education.

The Class X exam began on Friday. Over 5.32 lakh students had filled up forms for the examination.

Minister of school and mass education Samir Ranjan Dash told The Telegraph: “I have asked the president of the Board of Secondary Education to submit a report on the non-appearance of students in the examination. Once the examination is completed, we will have a detailed report on the students who skipped the exam.”

Dash added: “This time, the Odisha government bore the cost of form fill-up so that none of the students fail to appear for the exam because of lack of money. All the schools filled up their forms maintaining that 100 per cent of students would appear for the examination.

“Those students who did not appear in the summative assessment-I examination held in November naturally did not appear in the summative assessment-II examination. If we include the numbers, then there are chances that many students did not appear for the examination. However, a clear picture will be available once the report is compiled. We need to wait till the examination is over.”

The summative assessment-I test was held in schools in November.