Haryana tightens vigil to curb cheating in board exams

GURGAON: The Board of School Education, Haryana, on Sunday expressed confidence that instances of cheating and paper leaks have come down since it took prompt action to clamp down on any unfair practices in the ongoing Class 10 and 12 board examinations.
Exams in all centres across the state are going on smoothly, and BSEH has intensified monitoring to ensure that examinations conclude without any more cheating incidents, officials said on Sunday.
“Although there were a few cases of individual cheating, no instances of mass copying or outside interference were reported during the exams. Major relief is that we have been able to discourage people from leaking question papers, and it has been done because of our novel approach of introducing QR codes in the question papers,” said BSEH chairman Ved Prakash Yadav.
Last month, TOI reported this year’s board exam papers will each have a QR code and unique identification number based on registrations made by a school. These markers were supposed to help trace the person in case of a leak.
In this year’s Haryana board exams, which began on February 27, the question paper for Class 10 Hindi language test was leaked from two centres in Sonipat last week. Mass cheating involving was also reported from a centre in Gohana block of Sonipat on March 1.
According to the board, the question papers were leaked after someone clicked images of the test questions from the windows of the examination halls at the Government Senior Secondary School in Jagsi village and the Government Senior Secondary School in Tajpur village of Sonipat. The papers were also circulated on social media.
BSEH subsequently cancelled the tests at these centres, suspended the invigilators, filed cases against the accused students and shifted the centres.
“The swiftness of action created deterrence. In the days to come, we will scale up monitoring and keep a close eye on developments across the centres. Our focus is on areas where cheating and outside interference may be possible, but so far, things seem to be under control,” said Yadav.
In some areas such as Bhiwani, officials said, BSEH has roped in locals to keep a check at examination centres.
The next key exam that officials are on the lookout for is the Class 12 English language paper, scheduled on March 15. The Haryana board exams will come to an end on March 28.