Right to Cheat in Exams a Fundamental Right

HS examinees on rampage for cheat right

OUR BUREAU

HS examinees went on the rampage at two test centres on Friday, breaking furniture, throwing stones and attacking officials, because they were not allowed to cheat.

Trouble broke out at Bethuadahari JCM High School, under Nakashipara police station in Nadia, and Kabi Keshablal Vidyapith in Bongaon, North 24-Parganas, after the day’s exams ended. Police had to rush to the schools to control the situation.

Examinees at Kabi Keshablal Vidyapith, who study at Bongaon High School, wanted invigilators to give them “chits”, small pieces of paper with parts of answers written, during their chemistry and history exams.

Because the invigilators refused to do so, a group of examinees gheraoed headmaster Narayan Biswas and demanded to know why they had not been “helped”. They alleged that some non-teaching employees of the school had taken money from another group of examinees and supplied them chits. When the headmaster denied the allegation, the students ransacked his office and classrooms.

Later, residents of the area assembled in front of the school to protest the ransacking and beat up an examinee.

A police officer said students of Sudhakarpur High School, who wrote their history paper at Bethuadahari JCM High School, ransacked the examination hall after submitting their answer scripts.

An invigilator said the students were abusing them from the start of the examination and demanding that they be allowed to copy from books and chits. “We tried to persuade them to write their papers but they continued to abuse us,” he added.

A teacher at Bethuadahari JCM High School said: “The students started the fracas by abusing the invigilators. Later, they broke chairs, tables, desks and damaged blackboards.”

Two non-teaching employees and a Class XI student of the Bethuadahari school were injured in the violence. Group D employees Ashish Chatterjee and Basudeb Mandal sustained minor injuries in their attempt to stop the students.

A teacher said one of the stones thrown by the examinees hit Class XI student Maheswar Ghosh, who was admitted to Bethuadahari hospital.

The Nadia superintendent of police, S.R. Mishra, said: “We have detained one student, who allegedly started the trouble and abused invigilators. We are questioning him.”

“We have sought detailed reports from the headmasters of the two schools. Appropriate action will be taken against those who created trouble,” said Muktinath Chatterjee, president, West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. The council also informed Bratya Basu, the school education minister, about the violence.

A week before the HS started, the minister had promised to take all possible steps to prevent cheating and violence during the exam after a meeting with district magistrates and superintendents of police at Writers’ Buildings.

Basu had recently said at a function that “cheating is a social menace and the state government is taking every possible measure to prevent all kinds of malpractices during examinations”.

Since those who cheat in exams are mainly from the weaker section of society who have been trampled for centuries by the upper caste, I would suggest that the "Right To Cheat" should be made into a fundamental right for the SC, ST and OBC and Muslim category of candidate.

It would further the cause of Justice which is being allowed to them by way of reservations in all walks of life.

I hope you are listening -Mamta Banerjee, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh.