CBSE Adopts New Tech to Prevent Paper Leaks, Plans Early Results

All the stages of conducting examination by CBSE will be done online.

Image used for representational purposes. 

(Photo: The Quint)

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to implement a geo-tagging-based tracking and monitoring system to ensure confidentiality of question papers and to prevent paper leaks, a CBSE official told The Quint on Wednesday, 13 February.

According to the official, a centre superintendent (CS) under this measure, will be required to upload pictures at three stages. The Board has made it mandatory to include a deputy superintendent this year to ensure that two people are involved in the process of examination and the burden of inspecting the modus operandi is not solely on a centre superintendent.

The CS will first upload the picture at the time of receiving the envelope of question paper. Subsequently, the second picture will be sent once the envelope is opened and last picture will have to be sent by the CS after the papers are exhausted and the envelope is closed.

One Point In-charge for Question Paper Distribution

The Board has strictly mentioned that the CS will not be allowed to delegate his responsibility of distributing the question paper.

To ensure this, CBSE has also decided to put all the 4,974 centres across India under the scrutiny of District Magistrate (DM) and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), unlike last year where it was only under the CS’ supervision.

“If needed, Section 144 can also be implemented at examination centres this year,” senior officials at CBSE said.

The process of conducting exams will also make it mandatory to have an Observer of the examination who will monitor the process of conducting Board exam.

On the part of students, to prevent any paper leak, CBSE has introduced a complete ban on the use of communication devices in the examination hall. The Board has also banned carrying previous year’s question paper to the examination centre as a lot of panic was created in 2018 when old question papers were passed off as leaked question papers.

CBSE Plans to Announce Results a Week Earlier

CBSE Secretary Anurag Tripathi told The Quint that the Board is making all efforts to announce results a week earlier compared to last year.

He added that this year, all the stages of conducting examination by CBSE – from registration of candidates by the Board, to declaring results – will be done online.

The Board will also take last year's route of re-examination in 15 subjects where the question papers were sent electronically and were only accessed by the CS after feeding a URL on the internal portal. However, it has decided to issue a hard copy of the question papers for ‘certain subjects’ due to logistical limitations.

“It will be difficult to ensure that nearly all 5,000 centres do not face technical glitch, hence we’re resorting to the traditional method of distribution in some subjects.” 

Anurag Tripathi, CBSE Secretary

Tripathi further said that the board will ensure no coaching, and tuition teachers are involved in these procedures.