[PICTURE] Indian students wear boxes on their heads during exam to prevent cheating

[MenInG]

(CNN)A school in India has apologized after photos emerged of students wearing cardboard boxes on their heads during an exam to discourage cheating.

The Bhagat Pre-University College in Haveri, in India's southwestern Karnataka state, implemented a trial run of the new measure last Wednesday, according to school management head M.B. Sateesh.

A staff member photographed the students sitting in neat rows, their heads obscured by cardboard boxes.

The front of the boxes had been cut out, allowing students to see their desks and exam sheets but restricting their vision, similar to blinkers used on a horse.

The photos were posted on Facebook by a staff member and promptly went viral, according to CNN affiliate CNN-News18.

Before long, the school was facing widespread criticism on social media. Even government officials weighed in -- S. Suresh Kumar, the state education minister, said in a tweet that the school's practice was "unacceptable."

"Nobody has any right to treat anybody more so students like animals," Kumar wrote. "This (perversion) will be dealt with aptly."

The school has provided authorities with a written explanation of the trial and an apology, Sateesh said.
Sateesh emphasized that the trial was optional, the school had notified parents in advance -- and only students with parental approval had been involved. Of the 72 students taking midterm exams that day, only 56 took part in the box experiment, he said.

"They said they were comfortable with the trial," Sateesh said. "The college did not harass any student, it was optional and some (students) experimented, some did not."

The students had brought their own boxes to school, and many took them off after 15 to 30 minutes, Sateesh said. The school asked all students to take off the boxes within an hour of the exam.

The school had faced a widespread and persistent cheating problem last year -- leading to new anti-cheating experiments like the boxes, according to CNN-News18.

There has been a number of cheating scandals across India in recent years. One particularly prominent scandal in 2015 saw parents and family members in Bihar state scaling the exterior walls of school buildings to pass their children cheat sheets.

In a developing economy like India, education is a precious commodity -- it could be the key for much of the population to get out of a vicious cycle of poverty. However, this also means many students are under heavy pressure not to just pass examinations, but to exceed expectations at all costs.

Critics have pointed to such pressure as a motivator to cheat, and a source of poor mental health among students -- earlier this year, 19 students in the southern Indian state of Telangana took their own lives after the release of exam results.


https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/21/india/india-student-box-cheating-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

 

[kk1992]

Explains a lot.

 

[troodon]

Good News for students with Acne. Friends will not notice them with those majestic boxes covering their faces.

 

[daytrader]

4 Hour Internet Shutdown In Assam. Reason: To Prevent Cheating In An Exam
Assam Recruitment Exam: Internet services won't be available in all districts where the exam is being conducted, the government said.

Dispur: As candidates are set to appear for a major recruitment exam in Assam to fill 27,000 government posts in various departments, the state government has suspended mobile internet services around examination centres during the hours of the exam to prevent candidates from cheating.
The exam is part of the largest recruitment drive in the state for which around 14 lakh students will appear.

Internet services won't be available in all districts where the exam is being conducted, the government said.

Section 144 of CrPC will be imposed as tight security arrangements have been made in every examination centre, the government added.

As part of the rules, candidates as well as the invigilators are barred from carrying mobile phones or any other electronic gadgets into the examination centres. The centre-in-charge in each examination centre has been directed to video graph the examination centre.

Ahead of the examination, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma held a virtual meeting with deputy commissioners and other officials to ensure the smooth conduct of the exams. During the meeting the chief minister told the officials that there should be no complacency while conducting the exam.

The first phase of the examination for filling Grade-III and Grade-IV posts is being held today, followed by August 28 and September 11.

NDTV

 

[Ahmad-GERMANFC]

India seems wild.
Apparently cable tv gets shut down for any family which has children giving board exams

 

[JaDed]

North India esp UP and Bihar are infested with cheating, good to see the crackdown happening.

I remember the topper girl who was harshly imprisoned because not only the government didn’t believe her scores after interview but also didn’t believe her age.(she was released later).

 

[sweep_shot]

If it prevents cheating, not a bad idea.

Quite odd though.

 

[Varun]

North India esp UP and Bihar are infested with cheating, good to see the crackdown happening.

But this isn't BIMARU else I was going to post my usual - it seems to be Karnataka.

 

[JaDed]

But this isn't BIMARU else I was going to post my usual - it seems to be Karnataka.

Yeah lol but that’s old news, the new one is from Assam.. and it’s actually pretty solid reason to take off interest and services during exams.

 

[JaDed]

I believe a lot of reasons why these exams are easy to cheat on is also because of how they are based.

It would be impossible to cheat on JEE due to how its measured, ofcourse identity cheating is still possible but hopefully in future exams can be based on understanding concepts then rote learning.(Medical and Bar exams are obviously exceptions but USMLE is a good example of tough conceptual exams)

 

[daytrader]

India paper leaks: Cheating plagues India jobs coveted by millions

On a chilly December morning, police in the western state of Rajasthan saw a bus heading towards Udaipur city and followed it.

The night before, they had received a tip-off - the question paper for an examination to recruit teachers in the state's government schools was going to be leaked in the morning, just hours before millions of students were to take the test. Some 1,193 exam centres were set up for the eagerly-awaited recruitment drive on 24 December.

In India, where government jobs are highly coveted, cases of aspiring candidates resorting to unfair means are not uncommon. One way many job-seekers try to secure a place is by cheating in exams, which includes buying question papers or paying someone else to write the test on their behalf.

The bus in Udaipur was on its way to an examination centre and police suspected that those leaking the paper were on it.

At first, they waited at a distance as the bus circled around a building for a few minutes. Then they stopped it.

"Inside, we found four government school teachers who were solving question papers for at least 20 candidates," an official, who wished to stay anonymous, told the BBC.

The aspirants had allegedly paid the teachers, who were on invigilation duty at the centre, money - the police did not specify how much - to solve the papers for them. Around 20 "dummy" candidates, who were paid by aspirants to take the test on their behalf, were also caught from the bus. Police alleged the accused were carrying fake IDs.

A total of 48 people were arrested in connection with the scam that morning, prompting authorities to cancel the examination process.

Two of the main accused are yet to be caught - authorities have announced a bounty of $1,500 (£1,245) on each of them, Udaipur police chief Vikas Sharma told the BBC.

***

Almost 20 million people in India are employed by the federal and state governments, and officials estimate that at least a million more jobs are lying vacant at the moment.

"Even 30 years after liberalisation, India doesn't have enough jobs for its population, which is nearing 1.4 billion," says writer and political commentator Gurcharan Das.

He adds that government jobs are more lucrative in a country where three-quarters of its workforce is self employed with little to no social security benefits.

"Unlike government jobs, private jobs do not come with a lifelong guarantee of security and pensions," Mr Das said.

The job aspirants say their future looks bleak because of paper leaks and repeated cancellation of exams - they fear that they will soon be past the age limit to apply for these positions.

"I attended years of coaching classes to qualify for a government job, but most of my exams got cancelled," said Devender Sharma.

The 30-year-old from the Bikaner city in Rajasthan has been applying for a decade for a low-skilled government job in the state.

"My parents blame me for failing, even though it's the system which has let us down," he said.

...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64495673

 

[jeetu]

Reminds me of meeting few people from Bihar during my college days who got 90% in English. Yet they struggled to write a paragraph on their own.