Guwahati: Hours before they were to appear for their general science exam Monday, Class 10 students in Assam were taken aback by the state secondary education board’s decision to cancel the test over media reports of an alleged question paper leak. Assam Director General of Police (DGP) G.P. Singh has announced that the matter will be investigated by the Crime Investigation Department (CID).
The cancellation was announced by state education minister Ranoj Pegu, who took to Twitter at around 11.48 pm to share a copy of a notification issued by the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA).
General Science examination of the on going HSLC examination scheduled for 13/03/2023 has been cancelled by SEBA in view of media reports of leakage of the question paper. Next date will be announced in due course. pic.twitter.com/3fvU2CbSgr
— Ranoj Pegu (@ranojpeguassam) March 12, 2023
The notification stated that the SEBA — the body that conducts the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) examination for Class 10 students — had learned through news reports Sunday evening that the general science question paper “is available in the hands of some candidate and it is also spread (sic) in the social media”.
The notification, signed by Controller of Examinations, SEBA, N.J. Sarmah, added that the board decided to cancel the examination since “such news may create a confusion in the minds of the candidates”.
In another tweet, Pegu said that the general science exam will now be held from 9 am onwards on 30 March across all examination centres in the state.
He later told reporters in Guwahati that SEBA had apprised him the previous evening about reports of the suspected paper leak.
“The SEBA had to take this decision near midnight and has lodged a police complaint. The question papers were supposed to be sent to the examination centres Monday morning from the police stations where they are stored,” said Pegu, adding that the state had witnessed a similar question paper leak in 2006.
The cancelled exam has upset students and parents, with some even contemplating a shift from the state board to the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE).
Meanwhile, student bodies including the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) took to the streets in different parts of the state Monday to protest the “callousness and irresponsibility” exhibited by SEBA officials.
AASU general secretary Sankor Jyoti Baruah also blamed Pegu, referring to him as the “puppet education minister of Assam”.
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Guwahati-based advocate Najib Baksh, whose daughter is appearing for her Class 10 board exam from a private school under SEBA, said this is “not the first time that such irregularities have been reported on part of SEBA”.
“Many of us parents too have suffered during our time. They (SEBA) never gave us adequate marks, and the preparation we had to undergo for the matriculation syllabus was enormous. I want my child to migrate to the CBSE board where she can score higher and examinations would also be conducted smoothly,” he told ThePrint.
Another parent from Guwahati, Pranjal Hazarika, said he would want his daughter to pursue her higher secondary education under the CBSE board as it would be advantageous when she appears for national-level competitive exams.
Hazarika added that the cancellation had left students, who studied hard for the examination, in a “state of shock”.
“State board has no strict regulations against anyone carrying mobile phones into places where question papers are kept. It might be one of their senior officials too who could have clicked a photo of the question paper and circulated it,” he added.
Mentioning that it will be difficult for his son — who studies in an Assamese medium school — to shift to another school under the CBSE board, Hazarika said with absolute certainty, “But my daughter will.”
Speaking to the media in Guwahati Monday, AASU general secretary Baruah said, “Not just today, the SEBA has done it time and again. They are entrusted to conduct just one examination, which they have failed to do without anomalies. All senior officials of SEBA involved in conducting the HSLC examination should be questioned.”
Baruah stated that the “puppet education minister of Assam, who has done nothing for students except ensuring his participation in silver and golden jubilee celebrations, is also answerable for pushing the students in this situation”.
“The education department is functioning irresponsibly and without discipline,” he alleged.
The issue was also raised in the legislative assembly Monday when Leader of Opposition Debabrata Saikia tabled an adjournment motion to demand a discussion on the issue, which was dismissed by Speaker Biswajit Daimary.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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