Class 10 maths re-exam: Just like 2G scam, CBSE paper leak never happened
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday, April 3, decided to not hold a re-examination for the Class 10 mathematics paper, which was held on March 28.
The examination board has said that the final decision of not conducting the test came after a "thorough analysis and evaluation of the answer sheets showed no specific trend that the leak had impacted the exam outcome". Take it to mean what you would because just how this "thorough analysis" was conducted is not known.
How would an analysis suggest that a student who answered all questions correctly could do so because she knew the questions in advance or just because she was well-prepared? Did CBSE draw the conclusion after finding that some students failed to answer correctly despite the leak?
Or, did CBSE decide on the matter after some kind of divine revelation that even though the question paper got leaked, no student got it? Or does it imply that there was no leak like there was no 2G scam?
We don't know. But CBSE claims that it does. Even though developments in the recent past give us no reason to believe CBSE, we would do so because we have no choice in the matter.
It is difficult to believe that the examination board has made such a huge joke out of the education system.
Education experts indeed suggested that since Class 10 results do not really impact university admission but only whether a student should move to higher secondary school, the board could allow the students to not take a re-exam thus reducing the burden our ill-thought-out education system is imposing on them.
It would have been fair for the CBSE to accept it but to say that it arrived at the decision after great analysis forces us to not take CBSE with the seriousness exam boards deserve.
The leak and what happened after that have exposed just how professionalism and integrity have been compromised in our highest institutions.
Sample this.
Right after the news of the leak became public, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said the Class 10 math examination will be held only in Delhi and Haryana. If the decision on whether the exam would be conducted or not was still pending, who briefed the HRD minister about the specific locations where it will take place?
Just how does one justify putting young students through this trauma of uncertainty? Yes, exams are no less than a trauma these days.
The paper leak has exposed CBSE's fault lines like never before. To begin with, the board is accused of knowing that exam papers were being shared on WhatsApp groups and were available in the market for those willing to buy and yet do nothing about it. After the leak was unravelled, CBSE officials were found missing from their offices and enjoying a long weekend, leaving students - with their anxiety and doubts - at the mercy of news channels to answer key questions.
It then went on to say both Class 10 maths and Class 12 economics paper will be held again. It now says there is no need for a Class 10 re-exam. A Times of India report, based on sources, suggests, "rigorous analysis (of answer sheets) will be done to check unusual variations in marks in the coming days to enable the CBSE to figure out which answer papers indicate a leak".
The report added: "If a student has done poorly in internal assessment and does exceptionally well in the main paper and this is at variance with his other papers - then we might examine the result more carefully."
So what happens if it then emerges that some students benefited from the leak? Again, we don't know. And we bet not even the board knows.
Many students have claimed that almost all CBSE papers leaked before the exams - not just maths and economic. Accepting this would be a shame for the CBSE (not that they have anything to be proud about even if that wasn't the case) and so no one in CBSE is suggesting that this angle needs an investigation.
And if the leaks weren't enough proof of CBSE's incompetence, there is more. A Class 10 CBSE student in Kerala's Kottayam district on March 28 found that the maths paper she answered was that of 2016. Ameeya Saleem discovered this after coming out of the examination centre, while she was discussing the paper with her friends.
This joke that the CBSE has played on the children of this country is tragic.
It is painful to witness that a board with which more than 28 lakh students from classes 10 and 12 registered this year could take their future, their anxieties, their concerns, their lives in general so lightly.
Also read: CBSE paper leak: How examination boards let us down each time