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'Hawa mein udta aaye copying material exam ka' Friday, June 1, 2001

By Radha Sharma

AHMEDABAD: It's almost as if the cyclone struck examination halls across the state when the high school exams were on two months ago. Imagine paper chits, guides and dupattas, with answers scribbled all over them, sprouting wings and flying across the examination hall!

No dream sequence this, but just a flimsy defence presented by the students caught copying in the SSC board examination.

Members of the examination committee of the Gujarat Secondary Examination Board (GSEB), hearing the 322 cases of malpractice registered during recently-concluded SSC exams, were left aghast at the alacrity with which the students lied.

Take for example, the girl from Rajkot who was apprehended by the board squad while copying from her white dupatta containing the fine-print of answers scribbled on in blue ink.

When asked to explain her position to the committee, this is how she justified her case. "Saheb, this is not my dupatta. I was writing my exam when strong winds started blowing and this dupatta came flying from somewhere and landed right in my lap. Before I could react, the board member came and caught me. I am innocent, sir."

Unfortunately for her, her earnest pleas did not help because the answers written on her answer-sheet matched what was scribbled on her dupatta word-for-word. The girl was found guilty and barred from giving the examination for two years.

Or consider this boy from Junagadh who was caught copying from a 'guide' red-handed. When asked about this, he countered that the guide was not his and that it had come flying from the window and landed on his table. He went to the extent of saying that this missile had hit him hard in the chest and he was still recuperating from the pain inflicted by the same!

"It is unbelievable the way these kids lie blatantly to save their skin," said examination committee member Bhaskar Patel.

The standard of teaching in rural schools also stood exposed during the hearing when a few of the students charged with copying could not even write a simple explanation in Gujarati. Worse still, one of them did not even know what date or day it was.

These hearings are held before a six-member committee where the accused students are presented with their answer sheets and the copying material confiscated from them and are asked to explain their position.

Depending on how damning the evidence is against the student, he/she is awarded punishment that could range from getting debarred from appearing in exams for one to three years.

Interestingly, committee members point out that students from each of the four zones - Saurashtra, north Gujarat, south Gujarat and central Gujarat -present them with similar, rehearsed excuses.

"In Saurashtra, almost all the students said that the copy-material confiscated from them was not brought in by them but was thrown at them by some other student with a malicious intention," pointed out another board member Jagdish Pandya.

In north Gujarat, the students quickly accept their guilt and ask for forgiveness, whereas in south Gujarat, a majority of then students pass on the blame to teachers alleging that it was they who gave them the material and encouraged them to copy.

"Probably, they all are trained to give this standard reply so that the moved board members would award minimum punishment," said one committee member.

Meanwhile, a number of teachers and supervisors who were caught facilitating mass-copying in exam centres were also summoned. But since the board does not have any powers to punish the teachers found guilty, their cases were handed over to the school management for taking disciplinary action.

News Source : Times Of India News Service [ Lightning News ]

 

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