State board officials even checked the students' phones, but found no evidence of a leak this time
Officials will enforce even stricter measures for the forthcoming Accountancy paper. File pic for representation
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Students, don't be late for your exam. Chances are, you'll be sent home, like the 17 latecomers who were turned away from their HSC examination yesterday. Officials left no stone unturned to prevent cheating in the Secretarial Practice (SP) paper, which had been leaked in the past two years. Not only did the officials turn away the highest ever number of latecomers on Monday, but the division also recorded the most number of copy cases — 12 — so far in this exam season. However, there was no evidence of a paper leak.
Western suburbs worst
In past years, the leaked paper was circulated in the Western suburbs, and the source of leak was a Virar college one year, and a Malad college in another. So, when eight students together arrived late at their exam centre in Nalasopara, the state board officials got suspicious. Not only were they refused entry to the exam hall, but their phones were also checked for any leaked questions or images of the question paper. The copying cases were also most common among students from the western suburbs. Out of 12 copy cases caught by the flying squads, 11 were from Nalasopara.
Strict measures
"All students who were caught copying are now barred from the ongoing examination. But these were all cases of traditional cheating practices, of carrying or passing chits with answers written on them. We did not find anybody with leaked questions," said Subhash Borse, Mumbai division secretary, Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.
He added, "All students who reached the exam hall after 11 am had to get their phones checked thoroughly. Exam centre heads are allowed to permit late entry till 11.10 am after noting down the name of the student and his/her reason for delay. If anybody turned up between 11.10 am and 11.20 am, the centre head has to speak to me directly to allow entry. And no one is allowed to enter after 11.20 am."
"Out of 17 students who reached late, most of the students were from western suburbs. There were two flying squads that caught many copy cases. For the Book keeping and Accountancy paper, which also has seen trouble in the last two years, there will be a total of six flying squads. Nobody will know which centres they will visit; not even the squad members will find out till the last minute," said Borse.
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