Using connections: Solving exams with money

Sources confess to leaking intermediate test papers half an hour before the exam.

ISLAMABAD:

Some officials within Rawalpindi Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (RBISE) seem to have a solution for “students with connections” who do not study for their exams. With the right contacts in RBISE, students can get copies of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) test papers half an hour before the actual exam - a malpractice that sells at non-negotiable rates of Rs10,000 for science papers and Rs2,000 for all others.

The Express Tribune on Monday got hold of the Urdu Paper-B of SSC Part-1 exactly half an hour before the start of the exam. The sources confessed of leaking all test papers of SSC exams for monetary benefits.

RBISE officials shifted the blame onto its lower staff that collects copies of the paper from Habib Bank Limited for distribution. They said that the leaked papers remain confined within a few hands until they are made public, thus allowing the syndicate to work fearlessly and unchecked.

Talking to The Express Tribune, RBISE Spokesperson Arslan Cheema said, “If the lower staff is involved in such leaks, we have no mechanism to check it. However, it can be inquired into and plugged.” He said that a couple of days ago the board’s chairperson received a message that an SSC exam paper had been leaked using cell phones at least a day before the exam. The paper was quickly replaced with one of the backup copies. At least three different question papers are prepared as a response measure to a possible paper leak, he informed. He alleged that a group of students with “right connections” in RBISE play a role in disseminating the paper amongst their friends.

Subsequently, the people involved in the malpractice have changed their strategies and leak the exam papers half an hour before the start of the exam. This way even if the board finds out about the leak, it is too late for them to change the question paper, sources said.

Negligence on part of RBISE officials has been evident in the recent crash of the board’s registration website and numerous cases of incorrectly listed test times and misprinted exam ids.

A candidate of SSC Part-2 exam, Madiha Shaheen, was unable to take her math exam as her exam slip had listed the test time incorrectly. On the exam slip, the test was scheduled on March 17 at 1:30 pm, but when she reached the test centre she was told that her exam had been conducted in the morning at 8:30 am. Her request for a retest was refused by the RBIS exams controller.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2011.