New Delhi: Facing flak after Class X and Class XII question papers were leaked, human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar had promised a hi-tech, leak-proof system of delivering the board exam papers starting Monday.
But the assurances seems to have fallen flat on the very first day. Not only did the CBSE fall back on the old way of delivering question papers, the papers were also delivered an hour late at the exam centres.
The board had given a long list of instructions to exam centres on Saturday for the new process, but exam coordinators said it is impossible to move to a new system in just one day.
The exam on Monday was the first after the Class 10 Mathematics and Class 12 Economics question papers were reported as leaked last week. Class 10 students had language exams like Sanskrit, Urdu and French while Class 12 students sat for their Hindi exam.
The mechanism that was devised by the government and CBSE to prevent a repeat of the leak involved encrypting the question papers and putting them on the website. The exam centres were to be given passwords from regional centres just before the exam.
All schools received a circular in this regard on Saturday. High-speed internet, computers, teachers, printers and a secure room with CCTV cameras installed were made mandatory for the printing, the circular said.
There are 744 centres for Class X and 733 for Class XII in Delhi alone. Officials said that those centres which do not have the required facility were asked to make arrangements and expenses incurred would be reimbursed.
It also stated that each school had to ensure that computer teachers/staff reach the centre by 7.30 am on all exam days to handle downloading and printing of the encrypted question papers, and to arrange at least 10 A4 sheets per candidate.
Each school had to send details of the number of printers, computers installed, name of the computer staff/teacher in charge with their details, to the board email-id by Sunday 4 pm.
The board, however, failed at its end as most of the exam centres did not get the encrypted question papers on time on Monday morning.
Finally, the CBSE had to rush the printed papers to various exam centres like it used to do earlier. Due to this, most of the exam centres in Delhi also got the question papers one hour late.
School principals and teachers News18 spoke to said CBSE and HRD ministry can't expect so much on such a short notice. “CBSE can’t expect us to do so many things in such a short time. It is very challenging. With just a day to make preparations, we are in a confused state," said a school principal on condition of anonymity.
The board said the students were not made to suffer and were given extra time. “We have contacted all regional offices to take account of the situation. In any case, it is a standard procedure that if the exam starts late, students will be given that amount of time to finish it to ensure there is no loss,” an official statement said.
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