1.8L students skip UP board exam due to anti-cheating measures
Left red-faced after a mass cheating fiasco in recent years, the UP education board has taken steps to ensure there's no copying in the Class 10 and 12 exams this time. But surprisingly, over 1.8L students gave the first exam a miss. Officials have attributed it to the strict anti-cheating measures employed. The exams began on February 6 and will end on March 12.
Last year, the education board was hounded by mass cheating complaints. Students were caught on camera openly consulting books during exams and exchanging notes. The copying mafia entered exam halls forcibly to hand over chits to students. Often, invigilators were missing. People were seen ripping pages from textbooks and pushing them inside through walls. Such allegations have been reported since a few years.
In 2017, 60.61L candidates had registered for the Class 10 and 12 exams, but due to stricter anti-cheating measures than before, 5.94L candidates dropped out, officials said. 1,862 students were caught copying. The pass percentage for Class 10 was 81.18%, and 82.62% for Class 12.
Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma, secondary education minister, said the administration has now "studied all possible ways and means of (cheating)." CCTV cameras have been mandated at exam centers, which have come down from over 12,000 to 8,500. Other measures include frisking students, appointing administrative officers as sector magistrates, and issuing prohibitory orders near centers. Even STF and local intelligence have been roped in.
These measures were what have made students skip the first exam, officials said. The number of absentees was high in many districts, including Hardoi (11,141), Azamgarh (8,842), Jaunpur (6,330), Gonda (6,299), Firozabad (5,214), Mainpuri (4,922), Hathras (5,567), Moradabad (6,034) and Sant Kabir Nagar (5,160). In CM Adityanath's Gorakhpur, 4,193 students remained absent. Over 66.37L students are registered for the UP board exams this year.
