Kolkata: In a first, Internet will be temporarily banned in seven districts of West Bengal when Class 10 state board exams start Monday, in an attempt to prevent cheating and leakage of question papers.
Students also won’t be allowed to use the washroom for the first 100 minutes of the exam, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) president Kalyanmoy Ganguly said Saturday.
Internet will be cut off for around four hours (11 am to 3.15 pm) for eight days between 7016 March in parts of Murshidabad, Uttar Dinajpur, Malda, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Birbhum and Darjeeling.
The exam dates are 7-9,11,12,14,15 and 16 March.
“CCTV cameras will also be installed in sensitive centers and policemen will be posted outside every center to ensure there are no untoward incidents during the written examination. Four control rooms have been set up,” Ganguly said.
Addressing a news conference, he also dismissed allegations of exam paper leak in 2020, saying the “question papers were coded”. He said there was one incident in 2019 but the culprit was immediately arrested to prevent the leaked paper from being circulated.
Offline exams after a gap of one year
A total of 11,26,863 students will appear for the West Bengal Class 10 board exam across 1,435 centers. The number of exam centers has been increased this year due to the pandemic.
Last year, no offline Class 10 board exams, or Madhyamik exams, were conducted in West Bengal due to Covid.
Over 10.79 lakh students had registered for the exam, which was accessed using a different system. The state had recoded 100% pass percentage with 79 students scoring full marks in 2021.
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