Girls 'strip-searched' at board exam centre near Pune: Curbing cheating does not mean treating students like criminals
Cheating is a symptom of a graver disease, in which students are the weakest link.
Two women security employees of a college near Pune, Vishwashanti Gurukul, Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), have been booked for allegedly strip-searching girls appearing for their Class 12 board exams.
#Maharashtra Education minister Vinod Tawde orders inquiry in MIT Pune's Vishwashanti Gurukul incident, says, 'it's not correct to search girls in this manner. Board doesn’t gave such order. We are also planning to change the exam centre'. pic.twitter.com/ABzLnJTJON
— ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018
Hindustan Times quoted one of the complainants as saying: “They made us take off our pants, aprons and kurtas and checked our private parts for chits. The girls who said they were on periods were taken to the washroom to check if they were really menstruating. I protested so they didn’t touch me.”
The institute has called the controversy an attempt to “malign its image” by parents disgruntled over their wards not being allowed to cheat. The institute has also claimed that it confiscated “a sack full of chits” from examinees but did not report it to save students from stringent punishment.
The guards of the college have been booked under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012. If the allegations are true, the guards are guilty of gross insensitivity.
While the police will probe the case, the Pune institute is not the only one in the country that, in an attempt to curb cheating, has been treating students as potential criminals.
In Bihar, students are being asked to remove shoes outside the exam centres. The reason offered is that examinees are often known to smuggle chits into exam rooms by tucking them inside shoes, and frisking each student would take too much time.
In Uttar Pradesh, around 10 lakh students skipped their class 10 and class 12 exams after the state government cracked down on rampant cheating. The exams are being held under strict police vigil – according to a report, in Allahabad zone, “each of the 313 exam centres is monitored by a team of a sub-inspector and two constables – policewomen where the centre is for girls – and 11 quick response teams are on standby”.
While seeking to curb unfair practices is welcome, targeting the weakest link – the student – is counter-productive. Also, trying to prevent cheating only at examination centres is like treating the symptom of a disease while ignoring its deep-rooted causes.
Cheating in board exams is an organised industry – question papers are leaked, schools bribe government officials to be chosen as exam centres, paid candidates write papers on behalf of students, invigilators dictate answers, a dedicated team of parents and others works to pass chits inside the exam hall.
Money exchanges hands at multiple levels – everyone from coaching centre owners to education department officials to teachers and invigilators make a pretty packet.
Students are hardly the primary actors here – victims of a system that fails to ensure regular classes and adequate teachers, they are under-prepared for the exams, and parents who are well aware of this desperately pull strings at the last moment to get them the coveted pass certificate.
Seventeen-year-old Ruby Rai, arrested and treated like a criminal in the wake of the Bihar toppers scam, had probably best articulated this when she told interrogators: “I had only told Papa to get me passed, but he went ahead and made me the topper.”
In such a scenario, subjecting students to humiliating searches before the exam only adds to their stress. Board exams hold an absurd amount of importance in the Indian middle class psyche, they are seen as the gateway to the world of higher education, job opportunities, all aspirations bright and beautiful.
Students, therefore, are already burdened by their own dreams, peer pressure and parents’ expectations. Making the exam centre feel like enemy territory – CCTV cameras, not being allowed to bend, not allowed to leave the exam room once inside, police standing guard outside – is not the way to help them perform better.
States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh witness industrial-scale cheating – in the words of the UP deputy chief minister and secondary education minister Dinesh Sharma, money involved in education scams is “much higher than in any big industry – to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees.”
Even in Maharashtra, though the state education board came up with new rules this year to check the use of unfair means in exams, the Class 12 English paper was allegedly leaked on WhatsApp. Last year, question papers of Mathematics, Marathi, Secretarial Practice and Physics and Commerce were leaked.
Strip-searching the girls in Pune can be attributed to the insensitivity of the security guards concerned. But the new measures implemented by the board include not allowing students who come late to sit for the exam. How can this or frisking of students prevent papers from being leaked on WhatsApp?
In Uttar Pradesh, the new stringent measures have not meant the eradication of cheating, it has meant “help” becoming costlier. According to a report, while till the last year, one could successfully cheat after paying Rs 1,000, the rate this time has climbed up to Rs 8,000. In Bihar, 1,000 students were expelled for “using unfair means” during exams.
Cheating in board examination is one result of poor education offered through the year and importance given to passing exams rather than actually learning in school. Stringent measures put all the blame of cheating, and the onus of a fair examination, on helpless students.
To truly bring in reforms, governments need to tackle the far graver problems in the system, instead of treating teenagers like criminals.