LUCKNOW: Taking a cue from a series of ‘topper scams’ in the Bihar School Examination Board, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government has decided to make the answer sheets of class X and XII boards’ toppers public from 2018 by uploading them online. This will make UP the first board to take such an initiative.
“This step will ensure transparency and remove doubts over the evaluation process,” said deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, who is also the secondary education minister.
The announcement comes after the Bihar board remained mired in controversy for two successive years. Though there has been no controversy over any topper of the UP board, the initiative is being taken as a precautionary measure.
According to sources, it has been a longstanding demand of the UP Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh (Secondary Teachers’ Association) to upload the answer sheets online.
“We had been demanding respective governments to upload the copies of top rankers for almost a decade now but to no avail,” said UPMSS State secretary and spokesman, RP Mishra.
He added that the initiative was being taken under this dispensation and it would serve the dual purpose. “Other students will draw inspiration from the toppers and also learn the presentation of answers. Second, transparency will be ensured and there will not be any chance of a Bihar like situation cropping up,” Mishra stated.
This year, after the execution of the decision by the UP secondary education department, answer copies of the State Board class X topper Tejaswi Devi, who scored 95.83% and Class XII topper Priyanshi Verma who obtained 96.20% will be available online.
However, from 2018, answer copies of the top three rankers would be uploaded online. The idea, said officials, is to allow other students to have a look at answer copies of meritorious students who have scored 98 or 99 per cent.
This year, Tejaswi scored 99 in three subjects - English, Hindi and Mathematics while Priyanshi got 98 in mathematics and physics.
“There is no reason to doubt the academic brilliance of the toppers. It’s not the case in UP. It is mass copying and faulty evaluation which takes a toll on the students’ future. With the copies online, everything will be transparent,’’ Mishra maintained.
For the last two years, class XII toppers of the Bihar School Education Board (BSEB) have been hogging the limelight for the wrong reasons. Ganesh Kumar, the class XII Bihar board topper in humanities this year hit the headlines on charges of fudging his date of birth to appear in the exams. After the revelation, he was stripped of his topper title. Ganesh, who had claimed to be 24, but was actually 42, was cancelled by the BSEB.
Last year, Ruby Rai who was declared the topper of class XII with humanities failed to pronounce her main subject properly while talking to media persons.
She called "political science" ‘prodigal science’ which was all about cooking while telling media persons about her subjects.
This year also, Kumar, stumbled over queries posed by the media on music, in which he scored 65 out of 70 in his practical examination. An FIR was lodged against Kumar by a BSEB section officer for forging his name and date of birth.