Mita Mukherjee

At least two institutions in West Bengal had to reschedule the timing of their examinations on Monday as internet services were suspended in 32 blocks of seven districts in the state to prevent cheating during the Madhyamik, the state board Class X board examinations which began today.

The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology,  which affiliates the private engineering colleges in West Bengal rescheduled their first semester examinations at 4.30 pm to 6 pm. The exams were supposed to start from 11.30 am today.

The Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) Shibpur also decided to conduct its undergraduate examinations in the evening instead of morning because of the internet shutdown.

The Class X exams conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in offline mode will continue till March 16.  As many as 11,26,863 students are appearing in the 2022 Madhyamik. The Class X exam is being held offline after a gap of two years. The exams were not conducted in 2021 because of the pandemic.

The state government has decided to temporarily suspend internet services for a few hours on the days of Madhyamik exams to prevent question leak.

 “ The internet services will be suspended in some select blocks of the seven districts from 11.15 am to 3.15 pm on all the examination days to prevent paper leak,” a source in the government said.  

Each day, the test starts at 11.45am and ends at 3pm. The board authorities said the shutdown was ordered by the government.

The districts to be affected are Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, Birbhum, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Darjeeling.

The board authorities said they were apprehensive that like previous years,  Madhyamik questions could be leaked and circulated through WhatsApp or other means using the internet. The board gave a proposal to the government to keep internet services suspended in 32 blocks of seven districts which it found to be sensitive, for a few hours on the exam days. The government accepted the proposal and ordered the shutdown for the interest of students, the source said.

The state government has the power to direct telecom providers to suspend services, including internet access, the source said.

In 2019 Madhyamik questions in several subjects, including Bengali (second language), English (first language), history, geography and math had started circulating through WhatsApp immediately after the question papers had been distributed to the examinees.

A racket was allegedly involved in the circulation of the questions. The police had found that some examinees were also a part of the racket.

The examinees involved in the racket would take pictures of question papers with their cellphones in exam halls and distribute them using the Net. There were others in the group including teachers who would write the answers and supply them to candidates.

A number of students including some Madhyamik examinees were arrested in 2019 for their alleged links with the racket.

Also read: Decline in reading and numerical skills of students in West Bengal: ASER External