What were the recent controversies?
- People climbed the high walls of an examination centre in Vaishali district to pass on chits to examinees.
- The 2016 intermediate exam topper in humanities was unable to answer basic questions posed by reporters on her subjects.
What preventive measures did the Board take?
- Bar code on answer sheets was introduced to concealing students’ identity.
- CCTV cameras were installed.
- Section 144 was imposed on the days of the exams.
- Heavy police personnel were deployed along with regular visits of ‘flying squads’ at the exam centres.
- Following this, 64% students failed to pass the Class XII exam in 2017.
- As many as 654 schools failed to produce even a single successful candidate.
- Authorities claimed all this was proof that only deserving students passed this year.
What went wrong this year?
- 2017 humanities topper again failed to answer even the basic questions of the subject in which he had got 83% marks.
- He was also found to have fudged his age.
- There were claims by some students of having cracked the all-India IIT-JEE tests and yet failing in their BSEB intermediate exams.
- Some claimed that they had received marks in subjects they hadn’t even appeared in.
What are the reasons?
- Campant corruption in the BSEB is prevalent.
- Also Teacher absenteeism in higher secondary schools as high as 29%.
- The government’s decision to appoint teachers on contract while abolishing the post of Assistant Teachers is often faulted for marring the quality of education.
- For 27.5 million students, there are only 5,00,000 teachers, of whom 4,00,000 are on contract.
- Even basic infrastructure is woefully inadequate.
Source: The Hindu
