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Fighting the menace of question-leaking
IN thenot-so-distantpast, the main concern of authorities conducting public examinations was the practice of adopting unfair means by a dishonest examinee who copied either from another student's answer script or from pages of a book, or from crib sheets that he/she carried secretly into the examination hall. The challenge before the examination conducting authority, therefore, was to
ensure that no candidate was able to engage in such dishonest practice of copying. The invigilators would keep a keen eye on the examinees and catch and punish anyone found adopting such unfair means. That was enough to hold cribbing in examinations in check.
Now things are not that simple. Modern digital technology has entered the scene, changing the modus operandi of copying. The earlier analogue method has now been replaced with its digital version. Copying is no more an amateurish job performed by an individual examinee on his/her own. The very recent experience of copying during tests held for students seeking admission in Dhaka University (DU) gives one the impression that copying has now come of age' as it has grown into a 'fully-fledged service providing business.' A highly skilled team of professionals are providing dedicated service to clients willing to buy their service. Once enrolled as their client, of course, after paying a substantial sum of money, the examinee will just get the end product (i.e. answers to questions) in the form of SMS, instructions on telephone and so on just sitting there at his/her table in the examination hall. Reports further have it that the prospective clients need not
take the trouble of looking for the service providers in the market, who, needless to say, operate underground. That's because the service providers do the work of contacting their clients themselves and make the service available at the customer's doorstep!
Take the case of 45 persons including 32 students and one teacher arrested on charge of cheating and forgery during the admission tests for Gha unit under the social science faculty of the Dhaka and Jagannath Universities on September 26. What came out from the confessional statements of the arrested students and members of the forgery racket was mind-boggling. The members of the cheating racket meticulously organised the entire operation from contacting dishonest people willing to cooperate at different levels of the system that conducts admission tests under these universities to getting students who would buy their service to finding skilled problem-solvers to expert hands to manage the complicated operation of sending the solved answers to examinees at the examination centres! They had been neatly carrying out their operation until the lawmen intercepted it with their superior technology.
Rab personnel who were tracking the members of the racket since the night before the examination undoubtedly did a commendable job of catching them in the act from different spots in the city. The Dhaka University and
the Jagannath University authorities do also deserve plaudits for apprehending some of these culprits and handing them over to lawmen. These criminals, including the examinees who adopted such unfair means in the admission test, deserve no mercy but exemplary punishment under the law.
Allegations are there that culprits so arrested for examination-related offences often get away with their crime, thanks to lax application of law. It is worthwhile to note that the 1980's law, amended in 1992, against adopting unfair means in public examinations provides for awarding three to 10 years' imprisonment including fine. While the need for strict application of this law to punish culprits as a deterrent against the offence cannot be overemphasised the sheer pervasiveness of the crime demands more than just police action to curb it.
From the reports on the recent arrests of students and members of the examination forgery gangs, it becomes plain as day that it is a very powerful quarter that the lawenforcers are pitted against. For instance, members of the pro-ruling party student front, teachers, invigilators, even members of management committees of educational institutions were allegedly complicit in question-leaking crime. If the crime is to be rooted out effectively, is it also not necessary that all those culprits hiding within the very system that conducts public examinations should be ferreted out and brought to justice? Aren't those people destroying the sanctity of the examination system from within? Don't, for example, the black sheep among the invigilators who in blatant violation of the rules allowed some examinees to carry cell phones or other kinds of electronic devices in the examination halls deserve still harsher punishment? Is the long arm of the law long enough to reach and tap on all those high profile people's shoulders?
Small wonder, despite
arrests of some errant examinees and members of the forgery gangs, there is no sign that the evil practice of question leaking or cheating in the examination is coming under control!
As evident from the foregoing, the nature of examcheating has, of late, undergone a massive change. It has gone beyond the level of arresting an errant examinee or two and their abettors to combat the menace. As a matter of fact, it has gone into the hands of a mafia that thrives on the huge money being transacted in the illicit exam cheating trade. Is it then any surprise that education itself has become commercialised? It is the dirty money in education that that has left its corruptive influence over everyone linked to this sector - students, their guardians, teachers, employees at various levels in the educational institutions, you name it. In such an atmosphere, who needs a real exam to test a learner's actual aptitude, if money can buy his/her educational certificate or right to get admitted in an institution of higher learning?
So, tackling the crime of question leaking or cheating in exams is not the job of the police alone. Nothing short of a crusade against corruption in the education sector, especially through freeing education from the influence of dirty money, can we hope to combat the menace effectively.
The writer Is Editor, Science & Life, The Daily Star. E-mail: sfalim.ds@gmail.com