HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, April 6: The state government will conduct a “post-mortem” of the Class 10 board exam question paper leak, and evolve a “fool-proof” system for distribution of the papers to schools.
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This was stated by education minister Ranoj Pegu in the state Assembly on Thursday.
The minister was replying to a discussion on ‘HSLC exam anomalies’, moved by leader of opposition Debabrata Saikia of the Congress on the last day of the assembly’s budget session.
He maintained that the Board of Secondary Education, Assam, (SEBA), which conducts the Class 10 exams, is not to be blamed for the paper leak, as it was a “teacher who did it”.
The General Science, and Modern Indian Languages and English exams had to be rescheduled last month, following the question paper leak.
Several people have been arrested by the CID, which is investigating the case, with two teachers, identified as the masterminds, also in the police net.
“The SEBA follows a flawless question paper setting procedure. The printed question paper sets are delivered in sealed bundles to its office here, from where these are dispatched to different police stations. Once the bundles reach the police stations, it becomes the responsibility of the police and the exam centre in-charges to ensure that no tampering takes place. SEBA cannot be blamed in this instance,” Pegu said.
While accepting that there were problems in the question paper distribution process as evident from this year’s case, he urged the members of the house to share their suggestions with his department.
“It becomes difficult when teachers get involved in such acts. We will take steps to ensure a fool-proof question paper distribution system,” he said.
“We will do a post-mortem of the case and take steps to correct all loopholes,” the minister added.
He also refuted opposition allegations that paper leak was common for SEBA and claimed that the last such instance was in 2006.
“There have been 70 cases of question paper leak in the country in the last 10 years. This year’s incident has been the only one in our state,” he said.
Earlier, initiating the discussion, Saikia said various committees over the years have recommended reforms for SEBA, and sought to know the status of those.
He also alleged that the state government fails to take follow-up action on the assurances given in the assembly when such incidents occur.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) MLA Manoranjan Talukdar asserted that SEBA cannot be cleared of not having any responsibility for the fiasco, and demanded removal of its chairman, controller of examination and secretary for a free and fair probe. (With inputs from PTI)
