Panaji, May 21 (IANS): Even as nearly 11,000 students appeared for the SSC examinations on Thursday, Goa Health Secretary Nila Mohanan has said that according to government protocol, if any student shows Covid-19-like symptoms while at the examination centre, the student would be allowed to answer the exam in isolation in a separate room.

"If there is such a situation, we will isolate the student in a completely different room. We will give one separate classroom to that student alone and with all due precautions we will allow him or her to take the exam," Mohanan told reporters, adding that enough empty rooms were available at the examination centres where exams to SSC and three remaining HSSC examinations are being conducted.

Nearly 11,000 students are appearing for the SSC exams and several thousand are eligible to appear for the remaining three papers of the HSSC exam, whose schedule was disrupted after the announcement of the nationwide lockdown in March.

The state government had made several arrangements for conduct of the examinations, including limiting 12 students to a classroom in view of social distancing norms and setting up of proper sanitisation facilities in school premises.

The opposition as well as some parents had opposed the organisation of the exams in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the High Court on Thursday, after hearing a petition which sought cancellation of the examination process, gave a go-ahead to the state government and the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to conduct the critical exams.