Kolkata, Feb. 17 -- The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) has cancelled the exams of four Madhyamik candidates after they were caught with mobile phones during the history paper on Monday.
Two students from Gobindapur Kalicharan High School in South 24-Parganas were found with phones while taking the exam at Mathur Jatiram Memorial High School. Another student from Hindi High School in Dalkhola, North Dinajpur, was caught at Dalkhola Girls High School, and the fourth student, from Ila Devi Girls High School, was caught at Tufanganj Nripendra Narayan Memorial High School in Cooch Behar.
The Madhyamik exams began on 10 February and are set to conclude on 22 February. Despite strict regulations prohibiting mobile phones in exam halls, there have been repeated violations. By Saturday, 12 candidates had already had their exams cancelled for similar infractions. The latest four cases bring the total to 16, with 14 of those students caught with mobile phones.
In a separate incident, a student tore up their answer sheet for the second consecutive day. On Saturday, during the mathematics exam, a candidate from North Dinajpur allegedly ripped up their answer script in frustration over the difficulty of the questions. This occurred at Surajpur High School, where the student from Belan High School was appearing. On Monday, a student from Chakulia High School in North Dinajpur also tore their answer sheet at the Gandal High School exam centre. Meanwhile, allegations about the difficulty of the maths paper, with some questions appearing to be outside the syllabus, have been addressed by WBBSE president Ramanuj Ganguly on Monday. He stated that subject experts had reviewed the paper and confirmed all questions were within the syllabus and balanced. However, to ensure fairness, the board has decided to evaluate specific questions favourably and uniformly, provided students attempted those questions and followed correct steps and methods.
These questions are Q.3 (vi) for North Bengal, Q.3 (iii) for Burdwan, Q.3 (iv) for Midnapore, Q.3 (i) for Kolkata and Q.15 (ii) for all regions.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.