Installation of CCTV cameras in almost all the examination centres to deter students from cheating and copying during the state board exams seems to have not made any impact. This year again, over 2,500 cases of students resorting to unfair means during the Class X and XII state board exams were detected after verification of over 3,500 CDs of footage of the recordings. However, case of students being caught physically by the examiners are not included in it.
The CCTV cameras were tested on a pilot basis for two years since 2013 after which the scheme was extended to almost all the examination centres. In 2015, the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) was awarded Skoch award under the smart governance category.
Barring 2017, when a slight dip in cheating cases were reported, there has not been much decline in the cases of copying and unfair means during the board ecamination.
In 2015 board examinations, when the CCTV cameras were introduced, the total number of unfair means cases detected by the CCTV cameras was 7,448, the highest number in five years. Among this, 4,173 — the largest number of copying cases — were reported from Anand district alone.
In 2016, over 2,500 copying cases were detected from CCTV footage. In 2017, nearly 2,100 copying cases were detected, while in 2018, a total of 2,550 cases were detected.
With history of anomalies that have been reported in the past years, the GSHSEB is currently carrying out an extensive verification to check any further discrepancies in the CCTV footage. For instance, there have been cases of schools submitting tampered CDs of the CCTV footages to the Board or electricity supply intentionally being disrupted to avoid CCTV recording of examinations.
Keeping this in mind, sources said that the GSHSEB is planning to make it mandatory for all the schools to have audio facility along with the CCTV recording for the board examinations. The board had attempted to introduce it this year, but after resentment from schools it was made optional. “With strict monitoring of examination centres like making it mandatory to depute Class I and II officials as observers at all over 700 sensitive and hyper-sensitive exam centres across the state, this year we are not expecting many cases of discrepancies,” said GSHSEB chairman A J Shah.
According to Shah, this year, the number of hand-held tablets to record the examination was also reduced to only 509 rooms from nearly 1,000 in 2018, with CCTVs covering 63,000 of the total 63,615 examination centres. Since there more chances of tablets being manipulated, Shah believes that reduce number of tablets would result in fewer number of discrepancies.
