Notice for exposing exam malpractices!

MUMBAI, Sept 6: The University of Mumbai has issued a show-cause notice to one of our senior reporters, Vijay Singh, who had appeared for an examination at Siddharth College posing as a student on April 23 with an intention to expose the rampant copying and impersonation that goes on during exams. In this endeavour he was supported by none other than the Minister of State for Education Anil Deshmukh himself, who had given Vijay a letter authorising him to “detect educational malpractices.”

Though Vijay had no I-card, nor a hall ticket, he faced no problem in appearing for the exam. Also, he managed to procure a pre-written answer booklet with university’s stamp on it through a source in the college campus minutes before the examination commenced. Inside the hall, once again, our reporter was not asked to produce his hall ticket as he sat scribbling inanities on his answer-sheet for over forty minutes. He could have reproduced the pre-written answer-sheet he had in his hands without anybody bothering him.For, he saw that copying was just as easy as acquiring the pre-written answer booklet. Just about everyone in the hall was copying – some from their fellow students’ papers and others from what is referred to as `chits’ in college parlance. Still others, more resourceful ones like Vijay, had the pre-written sheets tucked in their answer books. None of them seemed nervous, and quite understandbly so. For, no one was caught in the forty minutes that Vijay was there, untill that is the minister raided the place. The first student he frisked had chits pouring out of his pockets.

So, what has the university done? Did they catch the people who had leaked the paper ? Did they try to find out how the answer-sheets were smuggled out ? Did they catch any other offenders? No, they didn’t. What they did was slap Vijay Singh with a show-cause notice. Show-cause for appearing “as a dummy candidate under the false pretext,” and “smuggling in a pre-written answer book.” Smuggling? Vijay could have even walked inwith a set of encyclopaedias.

We believe the university is on a witch hunt to hide its lapses. Vijay’s merely attempted to stem the rot that has seeped into our educational system. Perhaps university officials do not see it that way. For others, more objective, the show-cause notice is a case of missing the woods for the trees-a phenomenon not unknown in the Indian education system.