Remarkable Pictures Show Dozens of People Scaling Building to Pass Relatives Notes During Exams in India
Corey Charlton, Daily Mail, March 20, 2015
Authorities in eastern India have been left embarrassed after images of people scaling the walls of a school exam centre to pass notes to relatives were broadcast on national television.
The images show dozens of people clinging to the windows of the four-storey building in the eastern state of Bihar, where more than 1.4million teenagers are sitting their leaving exams.
Other images showed police officers and school staff doing nothing and simply standing by as people passed study aides to candidates inside examination centres.
The students sitting the tests face tremendous pressure because they must pass the exams to continue their education.
The images went viral on Twitter and made national headlines, but Bihar’s education minister P. K. Shahi refused to accept any blame for the cheating.
He said: ‘You tell us what can the government do to stop cheating if parents and relatives are not ready to cooperate? Should the government give orders to shoot them?’
Attempts to stop mass copying have often triggered violent protests.
Students are sitting the Class 10 board examination amid widespread reports of mass copying and cheating across 1,200 schools.
State authorities posted police at all schools where examinations were being held, ‘but we can’t use force to drive away the parents,’ Mr Shahi said.
He admitted to the media that holding ‘free and fair exams’ was a big challenge for the Bihar government and the situation was so bad that at least four to five people helped every student to cheat.
In the last three days, more than 600 students caught cheating in the board examination have been expelled, while officials said over 1,000 students were caught cheating in examination in three subjects, including Mathematics and English.
Lalkeshwar Prasad, chairman of the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), which is conducting the examination said: ‘The students were expelled on charges of adopting unfair means.’
It is not the first time that exam cheating has been exposed in Bihar–more than 1,600 students were disqualified in 2013 after similar videos emerged.
Police also detained more than 100 adults for helping students cheat.
Sriniwas Tiwari, secretary of the Bihar School Examination Board, said students caught cheating could be barred from taking the exam for up to three years, ordered to pay a fine or even sent to jail.
