Students hope India’s law against exam cheats passes test
Students preparing for highly competitive exams in India, which can lead to prized government jobs, have welcomed a strict new law to prevent cheating.
Legislation passed by India’s Parliament on Tuesday aims to tackle the longstanding problem.
It sets out jail sentences of up to 10 years for those who enable cheating. Courts can also impose fines of up to 10 million rupees ($120,000).
Every year, tens of thousands of Indians take part in the gruelling exams.
Sumit Suman, 29, an accountant with Indian Railways in Jharkhand, who is preparing for the Staff Selection Commission exam, hopes the new law will level the playing field.
“In India it is a very big problem because exams get cancelled,” Mr Suman told The National. “I am hopeful that the law would work and help curbing cheating.”
With a population of more than 1.4 billion, of which about 40 per cent are of legal working age, finding a job in India can be challenging.
The difficultly of the exams and the desperation to pass has led to many instances of examiners receiving bribes, as well as reports of question papers and answers being leaked.
Some people pay for leaked question papers or to have someone take tests on their behalf across all levels of the education system.
Charges can vary between 2,000 rupees – or eight times the average daily wage – for standing in during an exam, to onea million rupees for more elaborate plans, such as stealing and leaking test papers.
Every year, many students, as well as teachers and exam organisers, are accused of cheating.
A young man was arrested last month after he impersonated his partner to take the exam on her behalf.
He was caught after his biometrics failed to match and an investigation is now under way.
The Central Selection Board of Constable in the eastern state of Bihar announced last October that it cancelled a written test for police recruitment after receiving complaints over leaked questions and incidents of cheating.
In 2015, the country was shocked by images of parents and friends scaling the walls of test centres in Bihar, to pass answers on to pupils at a secondary school exam.
One of the biggest cheating scams, involving Vyapam, an exam board in central Madhya Pradesh state, began in 1993 but was only unearthed in 2013.
More than 2,000 students conned their way into medical colleges and government posts with the help of test-fixing gangs that included politicians and test administrators.