Students appearing for Class X exams barred from wearing shoes
patna — Over 1.7 million students in flip-flops entered the examination centres in Bihar to appear for their Class 10 boards on Wednesday as shoes and socks were banned this year to check rampant cheating activities, an official said.
The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) in a notification had made it clear that students wearing shoes and socks will not be allowed to enter the examination centres.
Three days after the notification, 1.7 million students on Wednesday appeared for the exams at 1,426 centres across the state that will continue till February 28.
There was nothing new to this order though, said BSEB Chairman Anand Kishore, who issued the instructions. “It is the usual practice in other competitive examinations held in the state. The board decided to adopt the practice from this year,” Kishore said.
The BSEB officials are expecting that the annual examinations this year would be fair and mass cheating would become a thing of the past in Bihar. Nearly 1,000 students were penalised for cheating during the Class 12 exams that concluded on February 17.
Use of unfair means at the board examination had brought bad name to Bihar in the past. A photograph showing guardians and friends of examinees scaling a school building in Vaishali district to help them write their examinations had gone viral a few years ago bringing disrepute to the state.
In 2017, the Class 12 Arts stream topper was a 42-year-old man, who was later arrested on charges of faking his age to take the exams.
In 2016, Ruby Rai had topped Class 12 examination conducted by the Bihar State Education Board in Humanities stream. She got into trouble after a sting by a TV channel, which showed her giving ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to her subjects.
Saurabh Shreshtha, Science stream topper of Class 12 in 2016, was also caught on camera giving wrong answers to basic Science questions.
Former Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, however, criticised the decision saying that it was not required at all.
“The board’s decision is absolutely wrong and cannot be justified. I would not have agreed to it had I been the minister,” Choudhary said.