Class-8 students given Punjabi paper on day of Social Studies exam

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, March 14

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In a goof-up during the Class VIII examination of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) today, students who had come to take the social studies examination were handed the question paper of Punjabi. 

The Punjabi paper is scheduled to be held on March 19.

As soon as the wrong paper was handed out, students raised the alarm, forcing the staff on examination duty to swing into action and collect Punjabi question papers from the students.

Inderjit Singh, Director, State Council of Education, Research and Training (SCERT), said the error happened as the paper-setter had mismatched envelopes in which the question papers were sealed.

“We have taken a serious note of the lapse and decided to blacklist the vendor who provided the question papers, besides imposing a penalty on him,” the Director said.

The envelope containing Punjabi question papers was marked “social studies”.

In the absence of social studies question papers, the staff on examination duty at various centres requisitioned copies of question paper from other centres via WhatsApp and email, took out prints and distributed these to the students.

“We obtained the question paper from a centre in another district via WhatsApp. In absence of a printer or a xerox machine, we wrote it on the blackboard after which the exam started around 1.45 pm. The scheduled time was 1 pm,” said a teacher on exam duty in a nearby village here.

Jaswinder Singh, district coordinator for Class VIII examination in Faridkot, said the students were given extra time because of the delay in the start of the exam.

No mistake of staff, punjabi paper anew

There was no mistake on part of the staff posted at examination centres as the envelope containing Punjabi papers was marked “social studies”, said Inderjit Singh, Director, State Council of Education, Research and Training (SCERT). “We have decided to cancel the Punjabi paper,” he added.