As the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha, celebrates its Foundation Day at its Bajrakbati headquarters today, the festivities are overshadowed by a deepening personnel crisis. Despite a shift from managing 4–5 boards to overseeing over a dozen major examinations, the council is struggling with a severe lack of human resources.
The Board is currently responsible for high-stakes exams including Matric, OTET, OSSTET, and OAV Entrance. However, the workload surge has not been met with new recruitment. From the head office to regional branches in Balasore, Berhampur, and Sambalpur, positions remain vacant following retirements.
While cultural programs will mark the milestone today, officials highlight that the board's expanded mandate—covering everything from scholarship tests to mental development exams—is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain without urgent government intervention to fill critical staff vacancies across all six regional offices.