Alleged leak of questions in the ongoing primary education completion
examinations is putting huge mental pressure on minor students, said
teachers and guardians.
They said that the alleged leak of questions is also pushing the
children into anxiety about their first public examination and they
might develop a negative attitude toward education as well as the
society.
They also said that some coaching centres and dishonest teachers,
officials and guardians were making the children dependent on allegedly
leaked questions.
Allegations have it that the question papers of all subjects, Bengali,
English, mathematics and Gangladesh and global studies, on which the
examinations have been held, have been leaked.
The government on Saturday formed a committee to investigate the
allegation that the questions were leaked and the committee was asked to
submit the report in 15 days.
The acting Viqarunnisa Noon School and College principal, Monju Ara
Begum, said that many of the examinees were really upset after hearing
that the questions were leaked.
‘These children are facing huge mental pressure…leak of questions is
putting a negative impact on the students regarding education and social
system,’ she said.
Ideal School and College principal Shahanara Begum said, ‘The primary
exam turned into a farce. These students would develop an idea that they
do not need to take well preparation as they are getting questions
ahead of exams.’
Guardians should be more conscious as they have to play a vital role for stopping leak of question, she added.
Primary Teachers Association president Abul Bashar said that many
guardians said that they got questions from Facebook. ‘As the exam being
held with single question across the country it is easy to leak the
questions,’ he said.
Parvez Ahmed, whose son is taking primary completion exam from Dhaka
Residential Model College, said that his child was asking him for a
question before exam instead of taking preparation. It took good amount
of time to convince him that he need proper preparation not question to
have bright result.
Nazma Banu, whose son is taking primary completion exam from Manipur
School and College, said that it was really frustrating that questions
for public exams were randomly being leaked.
Teachers and guardians said that 70 per cent of allegedly leaked
questions for Bengali and English 90 per cent for mathematics and 50 per
cent for global studies matched the original question papers.
A numbers of guardians alleged that they found English question on
Facebook page Basherkella, which is known to be run by the
Jamaat-e-Islami-backed student organisation Chhatra Shibir activists.
The allegedly leaked questions and those were posted on Basherkella were similar, they said.
Directorate of primary education director general Shyamal Kanti Ghosh
said, ‘No question paper was leaked, but we found similarity between
some questions in the question papers and those in suggestions made by
coaching centres.’
A member of the probe committee said that they suspected that questions
might be leaked from National Academy for Primary Education or BG Press,
responsible for setting and printing the question papers. And some
profit oriented coaching centres might be behind the leak.
The police arrested five people in Dinajpur and Sathkhira on November 20
over the allegation of being engaged in the leak of questions.
This year, 29.50 lakh students are taking primary and ibtedayi education
completion examinations, the largest public examination of the country.
During the primary completion exam in 2012, guardians brought
allegations that question papers had been leaked in different subjects
like English and Mathematics. (source)