Ludhiana dist sheds cheating-haven tag

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 26

The name of Ludhiana district has been removed from the notorious list of cheating haven for students. As per the report of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), no sensitive examination centre will be established in Ludhiana district to curb cheating. The move has come up after the PSEB authorities found that the students of the district do not indulge in cheating during the examination.

Earlier, teachers had to cut a sorry figure after their students were caught cheating. The teachers were blamed for not doing duty sincerely, thereby compelling the students to cheat during the examination.

A few public schools in the city were notorious for encouraging cheating to show a good result. A majority of students were caught cheating during the math, science and English examinations.

Having failed to curb cheating in some schools, the board had decided to convert them into sensitive examination centres.

Chairman of the PSEB Balbir Singh Dhol said flying squad teams of the Education Department kept visiting these sensitive centres to curb the menace of cheating. Besides, the board also deployed examination observers in these examination centres.

The department had recently asked all districts to provide a list of sensitive centres. Sources said District Education Officer (DEO-Secondary) Sarabjit Singh had told the board that there was no need for setting up sensitive examination centre in the district.

Last year, 21 cases of cheating were reported from the district.

The sources said a team of the education board would visit the city soon to inspect the centre where the cheating cases were reported last year. If the team finds discrepancies, then those centres could be converted into sensitive examination centres.

So far, the board has identified 137 centres as sensitive in 13 districts of the state. Besides Ludhiana there are no sensitive examination centre in Amritsar, Sangrur, Nawanshahr, Mohali, Moga, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala and Faridkot.