Systemic changes needed to end paper leaks
Following the Supreme Court's Monday order, cancelling the All-India Pre-Medical and Pre-Dental Test held on May 3 and calling for a re-test, after a large-scale cheating racket was exposed, it is understandable that the focus is on the next examination: How will it be organised in a such a short timeIJ How will the students, who have already gone through one gruelling exercise, do it all over againIJ Is it fair to the hundreds of honest students that they have to pay the price for the dishonesty of othersIJ These are important issues for the time being, but what will matter in the long term is if this episode can spark large-scale systemic changes.
There is nothing new about cheating in examinations — it happens at all levels and across the board. For example, on June 13, Mithila University cancelled an examination at Samastipur Women's College after visuals of rampant cheating were aired by television channels. Weeks earlier on May 20, a case of cheating was registered against two students taking the entrance examination for Jawaharlal Nehru University's BA-MA programme, at a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Noida. In March, photographs of friends and family members scaling the walls of a school in Bihar, to illegally assist students taking the Class 10th board examination, went viral. The question here: How can cheating be discouraged, detected and contained effectivelyIJ The answer is simple: Those giving the examination have to be a step ahead of those taking the examination.
If students are using mobile phones, spyware and other advancements in communication technology to cheat, then examination organisers need to put in place systems that can render these ineffective. For example, one could consider installing metal detectors at the entrance of examination halls or jamming cell phone signals in the vicinity. Invigilators also need to be more alert (and not complicit themselves). This will be easier said than done, given that many examination centres don't even have basic infrastructure like adequate seating arrangements and proper toilet facilities. But in the case of large, standardised examinations, that determine the fate of lakhs of students, additional security measures have become a necessity. Yes, they will increase costs but perhaps the burden can be shared between students and the state.
The widespread phenomenon of cheating in examinations has two other aspects. First, it is partly the result of the incredibly skewed demand and supply equation that puts an inhuman amount of pressure on candidates taking the examination. Take the AIPMT as an example: More than six lakh students were fighting for less than 3,000 seats. The situation is the same for all professional examinations — be it entrance tests for the premier Indian Institutes of Technology and Management or the Railways and other Government jobs. Even at the school and undergraduate levels, the pressure to perform is nerve wracking. No wonder some seek the easy way out, and there is no dearth of unscrupulous elements waiting to help out. This leads us to the second point: The overall crumbling state of education in India. From falling academic standards to the poor quality of teachers to outdated syllabi, the rot runs deep.