WB Class-10 board paper packets to be opened before students
In a departure from the norm, the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) today announced that question paper packets will henceforth be opened in front of Class 10 candidates, shortly before the commencement of the examination. Earlier, the sealed packets were broken in the office of the institution's headmaster and papers sorted accordingly before distribution among the students.
A headmaster opened seal much before scheduled time last year
"From 2019, the sealed question packets of Madhyamik examination (Class 10 board exam) will be opened by invigilators in front of students in the examination hall and distributed accordingly," board president Kalyanmoy Ganguly said. WBBSE's decision came in the wake of reports that the headmaster of a Jalpaiguri school, during the 2018 secondary examination, opened sealed question papers 35 minutes before the scheduled time.
Series of events led to this new decision by WBBSE
The headmaster was suspended by the board after he failed to give a satisfactory reply to a show-cause notice issued to him. There were also reports of a question paper leak on WhatsApp in 2017, but the board, then, asserted the paper circulated was "fake".
Meeting will be held to ensure glitch-free implementation of decision
Ganguly said WBBSE members, along with officer-in-charge of the local police station and a district administration official, will hold meetings with examination centers' head to ensure that the measures were implemented without glitches in a transparent manner. "This time, the number of question papers in the packets will tally with the number of examinees in the hall. There'll be no sorting beforehand," he said.
