Entrance exam board fails to learn from past mistakes

Bismah Malik

Tribune news Service

Srinagar, May 5

The Board of Professional for Entrance Exams (BOPEE) after facing serious corruption charges of selling Common Entrance Test papers in 2012 followed by paper leak scam in 2013 is now faced with an uphill task of conducting CET 2015 in which nearly 29,000 students will appear.

The CET exam will ensure the selection of over 2,000 candidates at undergraduate level in various medical, engineering, agriculture and veterinary science colleges of the state.

The recent case of BOPEE’s blooper of issuing an admit card to a cow has only increased the apprehensions among students who say that the exam body has not taken effective measures to ensure that the competitive exams are transparent.

“How can we trust an exam body whose ex-chairman sold question papers and fabricated the list of selected students? Even after that corruption scandal, the BOPEE could not ensure the safety of question papers and had mixed biology and chemistry papers during the 2013 entrance exams. We put in our sweat in these competitive exams. But the results are far from encouraging,” Saima Ahmad, a CET aspirant said.

After facing a huge outcry, the BOPEE had introduced online examination application process last year to do away with manual scrutinisation of application forms .

“ Because of the serious corruption charges and that of favouritism against some officials, the online exam system was introduced. We do have an IT team but even they do not have access to the data which is uploaded by applicants on website,” BOPEE Controller of Examinations Farooq Ahmad said.

He told The Tribune that the issuance of admit cards as well as allotment of centres to candidates was purely done online.

However, the admit card hoax has only exposed the lacunas of the online exam process of BOPEE.

Coaching Centers’ Association chairman GN Var said aspirants were discouraged due to the latest BOPEE blunder. He said over the past few years, the BOPEE had not been able to plug the loopholes whether it was ensuring the safety of question papers, scrutinisation of online exams or even allotment of seats during the counselling process.

“Even post the entrance test, our students say that the counselling sessions are highly biased and the panel of counsellors allot the best seats to their favourite students,” Var said.