The state higher secondary council has said that if an examinee is found with any communication device such as a phone or a smartwatch inside an examination hall or venue, his or her “entire examination will be cancelled for the year” and he or she won’t be allowed to “appear for rest of the examination(s)”.
The council also said, in a notice issued late on Wednesday: “In this case, an instant report should be sent to the deputy secretary (examinations) through email.”
The school-leaving exams, conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, start on Friday.
A council official said that till last year, if candidates were found carrying a communication device inside the exam hall, they would be reported against (RA).
“The RA committee would then decide on the fate of the candidate after the completion of the examinations, following several rounds of hearing,” said the official.
“This year, the council has decided to cancel instantly the entire examination of the candidate found with a communication device in the exam hall or venue,” council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said on Thursday. “The decision has been taken to send a stern message to examinees.”
The notice issued by the council says: “All the concerned attached with the ensuing HS Examination are hereby informed that the council has taken the under-noted security measures to ban/restrict the entry of mobile phone(s)/smartwatch or any other similar device(s) in the examination hall/
venue premises in HS Examination, 2024. Any examinee, if found/caught with mobile phones inside the Examination Hall/Venue premises, his/her entire examination will be cancelled for the year and will not be allowed to appear for rest of the examination(s).”
“The mobile phone is to be ceased by the concerned CIC (centre-in-charge) / CS (centre supervisor) / VS (venue supervisor) / invigilator and his/her answer script ceased... (and) a report should be sent later to the concerned Regional Office of the Council through Centre Secretary / Centre-in-Charge in a separate packet.”
The council president clarified that the presence of any sort of communication device on a candidate will lead to the cancellation of the exams.
The council is acting tough to prevent instances of examinees taking pictures of the question papers and circulating the images on social media.
Last year, purported images of two pages of the life science question paper of the HS exams surfaced on WhatsApp about two-and-a-half hours after the test started.
A council official saidthey will provide hand-held metal detectors only to 176 venues that have been identified as sensitive. All thecandidates who will write their papers at these venues will be scanned with metaldetectors.
The council will also use radio frequency devices to identify students in possession of smartphones or any other electronic gadget at the 176 venues.
“There will be 2,341 venues across the state. Which means most of the venues won’t have any proper scanning/frisking provisions. By issuing the notice we are trying to warn the examinees against resorting to any unfair means,” the official said.
The council has decided to introduce measures likeQR codes and unique serial numbers on questionpapers to detect the errantHS students in the event ofcirculation of images ofquestion papers on social media.
The examinees have also been told to write legibly on their answer scripts the serial numbers of their respective question papers.
“If the entry of mobile phones can be stopped entirely, there will be no more circulation of question papers on WhatsApp,” the council official said.
In the just-concluded state secondary examinations (Madhyamik), as many as 36 candidates had been barred from writing their papersafter images of question papers circulated on WhatsApp were tracked down to the QR codes on their questionpapers.
