‘Hold retests in areas, centres of leak’

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is being flooded with calls, texts and emails from schools and individuals requesting them to restrict re-examination of Class 10 Mathematics paper and the Class 12 Economics paper to centers or areas from where the leaks took place, officials said. The CBSE is yet to decide the retest dates.

According to a senior CBSE official, the requests are pouring in from different parts of the country and from schools located outside the country that come under the board.

“There are about 200 schools outside India in which around 6,000 students appeared for their Class 12 Economics paper and another 23,000 students took the Class 10 maths exam. Many schools have written to us stating that no leak took place there and hence they should not be included in the reexamination. We are examining this aspect and based on the inputs from the Delhi police, we will take a final call,” said a CBSE official.

Refuting allegations that the board was aware of the Mathematics paper leak and yet allowed the paper to go on as scheduled, senior officials said they only received information about the leak on March 28.

“We received an email around 2am. We could verify the leak after 9.30am when the seal of the papers was broken. By the time we could verify , the exam was already underway,” the official said. The board has also started an internal enquiry to check loopholes and fix responsibility.

Officials further said that for the retests and the remaining board exams they are likely to bring in a new system from Monday and were working out the logistics, timings, and checking a possible clash of dates with other competitive examinations.

The CBSE lodged the first police complaint on March 15 after rumors of Class 12 Accountancy paper leak started doing rounds. “We received Whatsapp screenshots after the exam was halfway through,” a CBSE official said. The next complaint was made on March 24.

“We received email saying that the teacher and two schools are involved in the leak.a complaint was made on March 26, after rumors of an Economics paper leak started,” another CBSE official said. On March 27 another complaint was made by the board after CBSE received an unaddressed envelope giving details of four numbers alleged to have been involved in the Economics paper leak.

On March 28, a final complaint was made after the Class 10 Mathematics paper leak. Sir,

I am a student of class 10 CBSE from Nagpur, Maharashtra. Due to the leaking of paper in Bihar we heard that rexam will be conducted all over country. But why should we all suffer ? Please consider re-exam in region where the paper has been leaked. @narendramodi @Prakashjavdekar @CBSEWORLD @Hrdministry I am a CBSE class 10 student from Kerala ... YES, strict action should be taken against the culprits’ but what about us...how is it our fault? Now we have to go through it all over again, the tension,the pressure ,the hardwork and those terrible 3 hours that felt like a lifetime. #Sackcbsechief It’s actually unfair for the students.some have planned their vacation trips and what they got is somethng worse.whn the paper started to leak CBSE didn’t bother to take action on that what they did is they waited and made a hell statement for reconduction of exams #CBSE @Prakashjavdekar @narendramodi please cancel the #Cbseretest its a humble request. We students again have to undergo the exam pressure (especially maths). All our joy was there for mere 30 minutes