Govt promises ‘justice’, students jittery
CBSE RETEST HRD minister assures CBSE will maintain same difficulty level as the earlier papers
It seems some kind of gang is behind this and is doing it deliberately. A special team is already probing the matter and the guilty will not be spared. We will ensure no injustice is caused. I just want to tell the parents and children that it is extremely unfortunate that this incident(s) happened.
NEWDELHI: Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday assured that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will ensure that the difficulty level for the retest of Class 10 mathematics and Class 12 economics papers does not change.
After rumours of both the papers being leaked before the exam, the board cancelled the papers on Wednesday and ordered a retest, evoking sharp reactions from the students, their parents and the academia. The mathematics paper was conducted on Wednesday and the economics exam on Monday. The decision will affect 28 lakh students across the country.
Allaying fears of a breach in the system, Javadekar said that the sanctity of the question papers will be protected with the use of technology across the country from Monday.
“We are deeply saddened by the incident. I want to assure parents and students that they will not have to face any such problem in future. I can understand the ordeals that students and parents must have gone through due to the paper leak,” the minister told reporters during a press conference at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in Delhi.
He also said that the difficulty level will be kept the same as earlier students had said that the papers were “easy”.
“They are now worried as to what type of papers and level of difficulty (in the questions) will be set when the board conducts the examination again. It will be the same. There will not be any injustice with any student,” Javadekar said.
Refuting charges against the CBSE, he said it has a solid system in place and conducts 24 exams annually for 1.2 crore students.
“But if someone is leaking it or there is some loophole in it and taking that into consideration, a new system will be put in place from Monday which will ensure there is no such leakage,” he said.
Javadekar also said that the HRD ministry will conduct “an internal inquiry” in the case while Delhi police will continue
The government will, with the help of technology, put in place a system which is so foolproof that there is no leak. We have also decided to tighten security for the time when papers are being distributed in the examination centres.
with its probe separately.
Twitter users went berserk over the retest announcement.
Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan questioned whether any exam or selection is “scamproof” in India. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala attacked the government and said that it should be renamed as ‘Paper Leak Government’. CBSE identifies 4-5 experts in each subject, including college teac chers and school teachers, to set thr ree versions each of a question pa aper. These teachers send their pap ers in a sealed envelope to the board d. A high-powered committee, including university and schoo ol teachers, and principals, check k if the question papers follow bo oard’s standards. They finalise differe ent sets for each subject and send d sealed copies to CBSE. The process starts in the mont th of July and August every year. Three sets of question papers s for each subject are made for Del l hi schools, three sets are set for schools outside Delhi; and thr re ee are made for the CBSE affiliated schools outside India. Eightee e n more sets are made as back u p and some of them are used in compartment exams. The questions are set with a different sequence in each set t. The questions in all sets are mostl y same. However, the difficulty level in each set is the same. The experts chosen for setting g the paper are not aware if their questions will make it to the finalf stage