The Bihar Public Service Fee (BPSC) cancelled examinations for the Civil Companies (preliminary) held lately after allegations of query paper leak led to an enormous outcry. The query papers had been discovered floating over social media. Not that that is one thing new for the State which is, of late, experiencing one more jugglery. In 2020, 1000’s of examinees showing for the BPSC examination boycotted the check in Aurangabad, alleging a paper leak after discovering the seals of the query papers already damaged. In 2022 itself, the Bihar Faculty Examination Board, the Madhyamik paper leak got here to the floor when it was alleged that many of the questions from a sequence had gone viral on social media earlier than the examination.
Within the wake of the cancellation of the Social Science examinations due to a paper leak in 2021, offended college students went on a rampage on Patna’s roads vandalizing authorities and personal properties. Bihar Fireman Paper examination 2022 was discovered to have leaked over cellphones earlier than the examination.
The Intermediate examination (2018) performed by the BSEB throughout the State turned controversial because the biology query paper went viral on social media allegedly after a leak when the examinees had been nonetheless writing the solutions at their centres. In the identical 12 months, the Bihar Employees Choice Fee query papers went viral on social media.
Amidst rumours of query leak, the preliminary examination for the recruitment of sub-inspectors, sergeants and assistant superintendents of police was performed in 2019.
In March 2017, Chairman Sudhir Kumar together with a senior IAS officer was arrested in reference to the Bihar Employees Choice Fee examination paper leak. Nevertheless, IAS officers within the State got here out in robust protest towards the arrest of their colleague and met the then Governor with their grievances.
The Bihar police arrested the proprietor of a training centre who was believed to be main the gang that attempted to leak query papers of NEET 2017.
Rajasthan Police arrested the mastermind from Bihar behind the Rajasthan PSC examination paper leak from the State in 2014. In the identical 12 months, the Particular Activity Drive arrested an alleged key accused within the Madhya Pradesh PSC examination paper leak, from Bihar. In 2016, three individuals from Bihar had been arrested by Telangana CID in reference to the Medical Entrance Examination query paper leak case. Masterminds of NEET (2016) papers’ leak arrested from UP additionally occurred to hail from Bihar. A declare by the Jharkhand police in 2018 that two college students from Bihar circulated the leaked CBSE Class X Arithmetic query papers on Whatsapp to examinees in Jharkhand added one other dimension to the paper leak scandal stemming from Bihar. It was doable that Mr Nitish Kumar had woken as much as the necessity to cleanse the Augean stables of schooling solely when the toppers’ scandal within the Bihar Intermediate examination had rocked all the tutorial world. The Chief Minister, himself an engineering graduate, was higher positioned to study from the State’s +2 topper that “Prodikal Science” (Political Science) is a topic that offers with cooking. Mr Kumar, now again within the saddle with a extra snug majority, is healthier positioned to cope with the schooling Mafia that’s on the rampage and making Bihar a rural desert with out an apology for fundamental schooling.
Again in 1999, Lalu Yadav’s daughter stood first in Patna College’s MBBS examination though she had did not clear her medical entrance check. She scored zero on certainly one of her entrance papers. Nevertheless, Lalu had dismissed this as an higher caste conspiracy.
In the identical 12 months, it was pure for the tutorial circle in Bihar to be surprised by the failure of the earlier 12 months’s State Secondary Board Examination topper ~ Vikas Kumar ~ to move any topic in his Class XI check leading to his expulsion from a reputed Delhi college. Their shock will need to have been larger as Vikas, in line with the Principal of the Delhi college, was unable to talk a phrase of English. This distressing occasion naturally put an enormous query mark not solely on the State Secondary Board’s yardstick for assessing the advantage of its examinees but in addition on the State’s schooling system as an entire.
In 2000, an IPS officer influenced the authorities of Magadh College in Bihar to allow his spouse to safe a first-class first grasp’s diploma though she sat for just one paper. On the premise of the faux diploma, she was admitted to a legislation faculty and secured a educating job in one other earlier than her research had been over. These episodes by the tip of the 20 th century had been proof of corruption and nepotism by ministers and bureaucrats who did a lot to scale back Bihar’s schooling system to a farce. In truth, it was Jaiprakash Yadav, who as schooling minister, had manipulated the Secondary Board outcomes to declare Vikas the topper. Jaiprakash stored on absconding to keep away from arrest for having made crores of rupees alongside together with his schooling commissioner by promoting faux B Ed levels.
Within the backdrop of rampant corruption and an atmosphere of scams, it’s futile to anticipate examinations and evaluations in a fairway. Levels and diplomas of Bihar’s universities have misplaced worth. Again in 1972, the biggest-ever racket in postgraduate examinations was unearthed in Bhagalpur and LN Mithila universities. The Centre superintendent of Munger Faculty was charged with permitting unfair means on the PG examinations. An FIR was filed towards the faculty principal and 150 college students who had been principally from Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.
Approach again within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, a vigilance inquiry was ordered into the appointment racket in numerous schools in Bihar. The dishonest recreation, nevertheless, had begun a lot earlier and anybody who made a reputation within the political area was identified to be founding a school. A lot of them had been revered names within the tutorial circuit.
Now, the identical dignitaries discovered circumstances of dishonest, conspiracy, corruption and forgery slapped towards their names underneath varied sections of the IPC. Voluminous reviews coping with all 40 schools had been filed, recommending the removing of illegally appointed lecturers. A lot of these appointed had their marks sheets solid whereas some had bogus appointment letters. Many didn’t even have the minimal qualifying marks. Apparently, many of the personal enterprises had opened these establishments with a revenue motive gathering donations from lecturers for his or her appointments.
Lecturers’ associations have held out the carrot of political assist in return for privileges that don’t have anything to do with the way forward for college students. And if governments of all hues have caved in, it’s largely as a result of they’ve paid solely lip service to the nice trigger of making a robust mental motion of social significance whereas campuses had been being remodeled into centres of sectarian politics.
It’s not tough to guess that a lot the identical factor occurred when the lecturers’ our bodies extracted concessions from Jagannath Mishra in1988 that went far past the reliable dues, and 1000’s of posts of professors and readers had been up for grabs. It’s a disgrace that the State College Grants Fee managed to “detect” the irregularities solely when the UGC tightened the purse strings.
The schooling and examination system in Bihar is in disarray. The State which boasted of the world-famous Nalanda College now has an schooling system rocking with corruption and goondaism. Advantage is at a dis- rely in every single place. An schooling Mafia is at work. Bachha Rai and Lalkeshwar Prasad had been simply the information of the iceberg.
(The author, a former Affiliate Professor, Division of English, Gurudas Faculty, Kolkata, is presently with Rabindra Bharati College)
