Madhyamik phone rule tweaked

TT, Salt Lake: Any Madhyamik candidate found in possession of a cellphone in the examination hall will have the paper cancelled, secondary education board administrator Kalyanmoy Ganguly said.

In another first, the board has introduced a system which will send an alert to its server as soon as the seal on a packet containing question papers is broken. The system will help curb malpractice such as paper leak.

Madhyamik 2018 begins on Monday. As many as 11,02,098 candidates will write the exams, which will continue till March 21, at 2,790 centres.

Till last year, a candidate found in possession of a cellphone in the exam hall would have been "reported against (RA)". The phone would be seized but the student would be allowed to write the paper.

The centre-in-charge would send the phone and the answer script to the board in separate covers. The RA committee would decide on the fate of the student.

This time an examinee will have the paper cancelled if he or she is found with a cellphone in the exam hall.

Disciplinary action will be taken against teachers and non-teaching employees found with cellphones at an exam venue despite not being authorised to do so.

Only four persons at a venue can carry phones - the officer-in charge, centre secretary, venue supervisor and additional venue supervisor.

"The question papers will be kept in specially-designed packets. A chip will be attached to each packet. As soon as the seal is broken, the chip will send an alert to the board's server. This will help us find out whether any unauthorised person has opened the packet," Ganguly said.