The state secondary education board has announced steps to prevent circulation of Madhyamik questions on WhatsApp after the start of each day’s exam.
The Class X board exams, conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Examination, start on Friday and will continue till February 12.
The board has issued a notice asking the invigilators at all Madhyamik centres to inform the examinees before the start of each day’s exam that “on every page of the question paper the serial number code is hidden, and therefore if anyone clicks a picture of the question paper, it will be easily detected who has done so”.
The notice says: “The full examination (Madhyamik Pariksha 2024) of the said candidate will be cancelled.”
The president of the board, Ramanuj Ganguly, said the serial number code would be specific to each candidate.
The board’s notice says: “Since it will be possible to find out who has committed this forbidden act of clicking the picture of the question paper... it will not be possible for such examinees to hide their own identity.”
All examinees, the notice says, “are hereby being alerted not to attempt such forbidden act”.
Students are barred from entering the examination centres with mobile phones.
Over the past few years, there have been reports from across the state of question papers circulating on WhatsApp barely 10 or 15 minutes into the day’s test.
Last year, purported images of a few pages of the English (second language) question paper circulated on social media in Malda district while the test was still on.
Board president Ganguly said some examinees had clicked pictures of the question paper.
A day before the start of Madhyamik 2024, Ganguly told The Telegraph on Thursday: “Instances of question papers circulating on social media trigger panic among examinees and guardians. So, we have thought of taking some deterrent measures. The invigilators have been asked to read out the advisory to the examinees before the start of each day’s exam.”
Around 9.23 lakh candidates are expected to write the Class X board examinations at 2,675 centres across Bengal.
“Each candidate has a specific serial code against his or her question paper,” said a board official.
Since the use of smartphones facilitates circulation of question papers on social media, the board has included phones on the list of items that an examinee is not allowed to carry to the test venue.
“Parents are earnestly requested to be alert to not allow their wards to carry mobile or other prohibited items with them to the examination centre/venue…” says the
appeal.
The board has already written to centre secretaries to preserve CCTV footage of each day of Madhyamik till the publication of the results “to maintain the highest standard of security, transparency and fairness throughout the examination process”.