Police to oversee HS paper distribution

MITA MUKHERJEE, TT, 16 Dec 2018, Salt Lake: A police team will be deployed inside each examination centre of Higher Secondary 2019 as part of an anticheat strategy that includes opening, sorting and distributing question papers in their presence.

Until this year, police deployment for the examination was restricted to outside the gate. The police would enter a centre only if it was considered "sensitive" or if the head of the institution made a special request.

"In 2019, police deployment inside all examination venues is mandatory," Mahua Das, the president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, said on Friday.

The police will be present inside an exam centre from the time the question-paper packets arrive and stay put till distribution is completed.

Sealed packets containing question papers will be opened in the strongroom of a school on the day of the exam in the presence of the police, Das said.

Sorting of question papers based on the number of students writing the test in each room will have to be done in the strongroom under police guard.

The cops will escort invigilators carrying the packets from the strongroom to the exam halls. They will leave the halls once the question papers are distributed, Das said.