Big Cheat on WhatsApp

Students are misusing the app to cheat in examinations

You can bank on Bengalis to be discreet. Quite unlike the widely circulated im-ages of blatant cheating in school and college exams in neigh-bouring Bihar, students in Kolkata are rather craftily misusing social media platforms like WhatsApp to get by examinations.

And the student unions on cam-puses affiliated to Calcutta Universi-ty, Barasat University and Jadavpur University are, according to some sources, in on what threatens to be-come even bigger than the legendary cheating scandals of Bihar.

The annual exams in Kol-kata’s Ashutosh College in March saw ‘Mass Com Family’, a group on WhatsApp, helping students write answers inside the examina-tion halls. Precise answers to the questions in the exam paper sent out minutes after the start of the exam were freely available to the group’s members—in this instance, a significant number of the students taking the exam.

University regulations barring mobile phones inside examination centres are routinely flouted, says a mass communication student of the college. Requesting anonymity, the student shockingly reveals that “teachers hardly ever invigilate”.

Instead they leave the task to the non-teaching staff, peons and labo-ratory attendants.It’s extremely easy to sneak a smartphone into the examination hall, says a Students Federation of India (SFI) member. “Where the authorities are more vigilant, mobile phones are conveniently hidden in

toilets where examinees can access them without fear,” says the Left Front union member. He claims that Trinamool Congress-backed unions have been supporting student admissions on ‘loyalty’ rather than merit “so they have a responsibility to help their flock pass exams too”.

Ashoke Mukhopadhyay, principal of the Seth Anandaram Jaipuria College in North Kolkata was taken aback but promised to investigate the misuse of WhatsApp by the students’ unions.

Students at Ashutosh College, who first reported the cheating via WhatsApp in March, say departmental WhatsApp groups, which benefit students who have missed lectures, are being misused to cheat during exams.

On March 8, the day of the exam, the ‘Mass Com Family’ group sent this message to its followers: “Don’t Worry. Keep your Cool. We are always with you from the day you have stepped in the college.”

Perhaps embarrassed by the disclosures that her own ilk were involved in large-scale cheating in exams, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad chief Jaya Dutta has vowed to intervene. “Forming a WhatsApp group is a good thing, but we will not allow it to be used for unfair activities. We are investigating in colleges, from where we have received complaints,” she says.

GROUP MEMBERS WERE SENT PRECISE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION PAPER MINUTES AFTER THE EXAM GOT UNDER WAY IN KOLKATA’S ASHUTOSH COLLEGE