Encrypted question papers likely to be sent to exam centres for class X, XII exams

In the new method, encrypted question papers will be sent directly to schools and passwords will be given to them to open the question papers at a specified time.
Image used for representational purpose only.
Image used for representational purpose only.

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education is likely to adopt a new system to deliver question papers to examination centres from next year following the major question paper leak episode this year that had marred class X and XII board examinations.

In the new method, encrypted question papers will be sent directly to schools and passwords will be given to them to open the question papers at a specified time. "In this system, schools will be asked to open and then print the question papers at a given time. We are going ahead with the approach because at present it looks like the best system possible," said Anurag Tripathy, secretary, CBSE.

"This will do away the need of carrying and storing of question papers at different locations and ensured that schools can only be allowed to print the papers just ahead of the given time." This approach, which was first experimented with at a few centres in Delhi during the paper leak controversy, is already being tried at 32 Centres during the ongoing compartment examinations.

The Board, however, concedes that logistically it might be difficult to print question papers at all 4,500 examination centres during the regular examination. "Our assessment says that most schools have the required hardware and printing facilities to carry out the examination but in cases where it's not there we will provide infrastructure and logistic support to schools," Tripathy added.

The Board is hoping that it will be possible to carry out the examinations with the expenses that it currently spends on conducting the examinations. Also, an outsider as an observer will be deployed at every centre in addition to the centre supervisor who is generally principal of the school where the exams are held.

"To be on the safer side we will also send physical papers to centres and once the encrypted method stabilises, we will continue with it," Tripathy also said. The Board, at one point, had even-toed with the idea of giving question in tablets to students but did not go ahead with it because of the high costs involved.

In March this year, after it emerged that class XII Economics and class X Mathematics papers had been leaked, the CBSE had decided to re-organise examinations for the two papers.

Following large-scale protests, the plan to reconduct class X Maths paper was dropped and test only for class XII Economics was held again in late April. The episode had resulted in major embarrassment and loss of face for the CBSE and the Union Human Resources Development ministry.

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