CUTTACK: The Special Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET)-2025, scheduled to be held on Sunday for in-service primary and upper primary school teachers across the state, was cancelled unexpectedly by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha amid allegations of a question paper leak.
Sources said the examination was cancelled only a few hours before its commencement, leaving over 75,000 candidates in shock and dismay.
“The Special OTET-2025 (Paper-1 and Paper-2), which was scheduled to be held on July 20, is hereby postponed until further notification,” read the notice issued by BSE.
The BSE also issued a letter to all centre superintendents, requesting them to hand over the sealed question packets to the messengers of the Board, who shall submit the same at the head office by July 21.
Although the BSE has issued a notice announcing the cancellation of the examination, it has not cited any reason that prompted the decision to defer the test.
Sources said the decision by BSE to postpone the examination allegedly came after images of handwritten question papers began circulating on social media from Saturday evening, despite the adoption of security measures such as watermarking, QR codes, digital locks and GPS tracking systems to enhance the safety of the question papers.
The handwritten question papers circulated on social media were said to be identical to the printed question papers, and this might have allegedly prompted the BSE authorities to issue a notice for the postponement of the examination, sources added.
The incident has raised serious concerns about the integrity of the examination process, besides sparking discontentment among the candidates.
The incident has sparked discontentment among candidates who were scheduled to appear the test. As per sources, around 75,403 in-service teachers including 29,004 for paper-1 (for primary school teachers from classes 1 to V) and 46,399 for paper-2 (for upper primary school teachers from classes VI to VIII) were to appear the examination in 193 examination centres. While the first paper was scheduled to be held from 9 am to 11.30 am, the second paper was scheduled from 2 pm to 4.30 pm on the day.
While the board is said to have initiated an inquiry to ascertain the source of the handwritten question papers, BSE president Srikant Tarai and vice-president Nihar Ranjan Mohanty could not be contacted for their comments on the issue.
Sources, however, attributed the incident to gross irresponsibility on part of the BSE authorities. They pointed out that there are three possible stages during which the question papers might have been leaked - during preparation, packaging or printing.