CBSE exam paper leak leaves some tough questions unanswered
In an unexplained departure this year, CBSE sent the same set of question papers to all regions.
In 2010, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had last conducted the Class 10 board exams. Following this, it had become an optional exam. The exam was reintroduced in the old format this year, and with incidents of unprecedented paper leaks, CBSE proved that it is not a competent body to conduct an examination of this scale, involving 16 lakh students across the country and abroad (more than 14,000 students took the Class 10 exams from the Gulf and other countries).
Till last year, most students were opting for school-based Class 10 board exams, with the CBSE left to deal with fewer students.
On March 28, the board announced that the Class 10 Maths and Class 12 Economics examinations will be reconducted as there has been a “likelihood of the exam having been compromised”. The Economics examinations were held on Monday.
While this has alarmed the students and parents that rumours of many other papers being leaked might not be unfounded, the board is yet to announce the dates of the re-examination. It is yet to clarify whether the retests will be held across all regions.
Assuring proper investigation into the paper leak, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said: "I also could not sleep at night. I am also a parent."
Did the board drag its feet?
While the Maths exam was underway on Wednesday, the board admitted of “certain happenings” being reported to it.
According to news reports, a copy of the Maths paper was delivered to the office of the CBSE chairperson on Tuesday evening, a day before the examination. There was no way to cross-check whether the copy matched with the original one as the original question papers were sealed and kept in banks. And also various reports claimed that CBSE chairperson was not present in Delhi.
However, the Board had time to act as this was not the first time that they were alerted.
Some board officials told the police that they had received a fax on March 23 naming a man from Rajinder Nagar in West Delhi as the one behind the paper leaks. The person runs a coaching centre. On March 26, the academic unit of CBSE received an unaddressed envelope containing four sheets of handwritten answer papers of Economics.
It remains a mystery as to why this was not reported to the police earlier, while there have been rumours that not only Maths (Class 10), and Economics (class 12), question papers of Class 12’s Accountancy, Biology, Economics, Chemistry and English might also have been leaked.
Delhi students want full re-examination
A protest rally was held at Jantar Mantar on Thursday, a day after the board announced its decision to conduct the re-exams. According to the protesters, the board has admitted to only two paper leaks while there have been many, as reported by the media.
How questions are set
The board finalises three to four experts for each subjects and then seeks three to four sets of question papers from each of them. These experts can be professors and teachers who don't come to know whether their question paper is being finalised till the day of the exam. No question paper is handwritten. Then these papers are sent to a team of moderators whose identities are never disclosed. They check the difficulty level of the papers and give their approval.
While the final question papers are sealed and sent to regional offices, the board keeps some other sets as a backup. Regional offices do not keep the final papers with them. Those are sent to nearby banks. On the day of the examinations, question papers are collected from banks and the seals broken at examination centres.
While this appears to be a foolproof plan, it is evident that leaking a paper is difficult without the aid of an insider. It can be leaked at a later stage when the papers are sent to the regional centres.
CBSE alerted examination centres before D-day. Why not police?
A day before the exams started, the board alerted all centres asking them not to respond to any mail asking for copies of question papers for verification. “The Board does not ask for any copies of the administered question paper from its examination centres,” the notice read.
Since such attempts had already come to the notice of the board, it should have alerted police immediately.
Why was only one set made this year?
The standard practice is to keep four sets of every question paper for centres in India and outside, along with a backup. These sets are more or less the same, with some difference in the sequence of questions. In an unexplained departure this year, CBSE sent the same set of question papers to all regions. Though the leak was reported in Delhi, it is not yet clarified whether all other regions will have to undergo re-examinations. Had they sent different sets to different regions, only Delhi region would have to conduct retests.
This, on CBSE’s part, indicates their unpreparedness to conduct the test after eight years.
Why CBSE was ruling out leak
Whenever a leak was reported this year, CBSE ruled out such possibilities within minutes and blamed “local mischief” for spreading the rumour. It followed a simple machinery of checking with all the examination centres whether they received sealed envelope. Based on that, they have ruled out any possibility of a leak without commissioning a detailed probe as soon as the leaks were being reported.
Will there be more retests?
After the board announced retests of two subjects exposing the lacunae in the examination system, several parents decided to move the court demanding retests of more subjects as questions of various papers have been leaked.
SIT probes question leak; one detained
Vicky, a 40-year-old man who runs Vidya Coaching Centre, has been detained on Thursday. Vicky has a Bachelors in Computers from Delhi University.
An SIT, headed by joint commissioner of Delhi Police, Alok Kumar, has been formed to probe the leak. The SIT will also include DCP- and ACP-rank officers. It was formed after the CBSE registered two complaints; one about the Economics paper leak and the other about the Maths paper leak. The Delhi Police have questioned 25 people, mostly students, who received the handwritten, leaked question papers.
The police earlier said they were facing problems in tracing the source of WhatsApp messages because of end-to-end encryption. "We have received snapshots of handwritten papers circulated on WhatsApp from the complainant," said an officer privy to the probe, according to PTI.
A gang at work trying to disrupt examination
From the beginning, there has been a concerted effort to disrupt the examination process this year. The “leaked” question papers doing rounds on social media were also sent to media houses. Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia also received a leaked question paper. When nothing could disrupt the examination, the sanctity of which has been long compromised, the leaked papers were sent to the board chief.
Not the first time
This is the first time that such a blatant security breach came to CBSE's notice, forcing the board to go for retests. Re-examinations are always troublesome, especially for Class 12, as there will be many competitive examinations lined up.
JEE Main exams for engineering entrance are scheduled for April 8.
For class 10, too, re-examination will delay results, which, in turn, will delay the new session.
In 2006, the leaked question paper of Business Studies was found during searches related to the Varanasi bomb blasts.
In 2011, three persons, Krishnan Raju, principal of a government school at Lapati, Rashid, an executive engineer of the Andamans PWD and Vijayan, a forest ranger, were arrested on charges of leaking board papers.