How they got leaked stays unknown
The question paper of mathematics part-II at this year's HSC exams under Dhaka Education Board had also leaked out, a government inquiry committee probing the leak of English-II question paper has found.
The committee got samples of the two leaked question papers in Faridpur district.
The printed questions of English-II were leaked out from Nagarkanda while those of mathematics-II were handwritten and leaked from Faridpur Sadar, according to the probe body report submitted to the education minister yesterday.
The deadline of the report submission was extended twice.
The high-powered committee, however, could not identify the specific source of the leak or the persons involved.
"It is not possible for an administrative committee to find out the exact source or the people behind it," committee chief Sohrab Hossain told The Daily Star.
A person was caught red handed in Faridpur with the leaked question paper of math-II, he said and added that law enforcers can locate the source if they investigate the detainee. The report said it was not possible to check the leak in the existing system.
At present, a group of trained question setters prepares the questions and sends them for moderation. Another group of trained teachers moderates the questions and prepares four sets. Then the authorities fix two sets through lottery before sending those to the Bangladesh Government (BG) press for printing and packaging.
The committee has suggested reducing the number of these layers.
The education ministry formed the seven-member high-powered committee led by Additional Secretary Sohrab Hossain on April 10, a day after the Dhaka board postponed the exam following reports of English-II question leak.
The English-II exam was held afresh on June 8. The Dhaka board had changed the questions set for May 28 mathematics-II soon after the allegations of leak spread out.
There have been widespread allegations that the questions of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations in February and other papers of Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) were leaked. But the education ministry kept denying the allegations.
Not only in hardcopies, questions were leaked allegedly on Facebook pages and through SMS as well.
Receiving the report yesterday afternoon, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid told reporters at his office that necessary steps would be taken after analysing and evaluating the probe body recommendations critically.
The leak is a black spot in the ministry's five-and-a-half-year history, he said.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The whole process, including preparation and moderation, will be done online. There will be a question database run by a software. After submission of the questions in the database by question setters, the moderation part would be done by the software, said the report.
It would take at least two to three years to build such a database, it said.
The question papers would be sent to the centres online on the morning of the morning, said the report. The questions will be stored in encrypted form and decrypted only after getting a certain command.
The centres also will have special setups, including a high-tech printer. The questions will be printed minutes before the start of the exam.
Another recommendation is that grassroots officials will be provided with a protective device to which questions will be sent days before the exams. The device will have a timer to fix when the officials will be able to print the questions after installing the device with printers.
The committee also suggested formulating multiple sets of question papers and selecting one from among them through lottery on the morning of the examination day to avoid any leak.
The probe body also recommended that question setters and moderators compose the questions and BG press only do the printing. Currently, the question setters and moderators send handwritten questions to be composed at the BG press.
Each of the recommendations has challenges, said the report. Above all, honesty is the main thing, the report said.
Sohrab told reporters that, "We took time as we emphasised more on how to check leaks in future."
He also said the committee tried to incorporate the opinions of teachers, academics and IT experts in the report. Some of the recommendations might not be implemented as they will require electricity, or back-up power supply and internet in each of the exam centres.
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