Bhubaneswar: If statements of educationists and former chairman of Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) are anything to go by, then the +2 question paper fiasco on March 14 in which Chemistry question papers were distributed instead of Mathematics, is a conspiracy.
Educationists are of the opinion that two sets of question papers can’t be mixed unless there is a deliberate attempt to do this.
“As there is every possibility of mix-up of both the papers, question papers of two different subjects are never printed in one day. If at all the printing is carried out, it is done at different units of the press with utmost caution,” former CHSE chairman Basudev Chhatoi stated.
“Such mistakes are very rare. From the current incident it is believed that the printing has been done in a single press. The matter should be investigated,” he noted.
While the matter has been referred to the examination controller for investigation, on the other hand, some have raised eyebrows on the result of the probe as the controller was the custodian of question papers.
“How a person, who was in-charge of the question papers, can be given the task of investigating the matter? What is the meaning of probing such a serious issue then and what would be the result?”asked educationist Kamal Lochan Mohapatra.
He demanded for truth to come out, the matter must be probed impartially.
But what has astonished many that the Higher Education department which had received recommendations from a Fact Finding team after a similar incident in 2015, has not yet implemented even one of the 25 cardinal points. Soon after the incident, Higher Education minister Pradeep Panigrahi had then said the recommendations will be implemented after a thorough study.
“The committee has recommended to reform examination system, course restructuring on the lines of CBSE, capacity building of teachers and setting up of a central processing unit. The department will soon implement these recommendations,” Panigrahi had said.
Bijay Chandra Rath, a member of the Fact Finding committee raised doubts over the implementation of their recommendations due to laxity on part of the government.
“We had recommended for a result processing unit, central unit for printing of application forms, question papers, prospectus among 25 cardinal points. It is up to the government to implement reforms in examination system,” said Rath.