The misuse of authority by professors and officials at the Tribhuvan University ( TU ) has led to a culture of leaking question papers in board exams. Frequent anomalies caused by negligence and irregularities have tarnished the image of country’s oldest and largest university that currently has a student body of nearly 400,000.

With no action taken against offenders, this tendency is continuing in multiple examinations the university conducts. Questions for a partial poetry exam of Bachelors Third Year held on Sunday did not abide by the curriculum. Though the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) cancelled the exam, those responsible for the negligence have yet to be ascertained. In the last five months alone, three cases of question papers being leaked have been reported.

Question papers for the Bachelor of Engineering and Architecture entrance examinations held under the Institute of Engineering (IoE) on August 12 were found to have been leaked for over Rs 1 million. The examination was cancelled after an investigation by the Central Investigation Bureau confirmed the sale of question papers prior to the exams. However, no action was taken against university officials, who claimed that that the papers were leaked while en route to the IoE from the printing press.

Similarly, the same Linguistics questions for the Masters in English first year final examinations held on September 9 were found to have been used previously during internal examinations at the TU ’s central campus a few months earlier. The questions were set by Assistant Professor Sharad Chandra Thakur, who has now been barred from drafting and conducting examinations. However, he has continued teaching at the TU Central Campus in Kirtipur.

 A similar case of exam questions being leaked happened during MD entrance exams under the Institute of Medicine two years ago. An investigation into the case discovered that the question papers had been sold for over Rs 1.5 million and also uncovered the involvement of the then IoM dean and campus chief. Once again, no action was taken against the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, concerned authorities are busy pointing fingers. The OCE points to the concerned departments for negligence while the departments blame the OCE for such cases repeating. “We are serious about the repetition of such cases and are planning to take tough measures to prevent them,” said Examination Controller Chiranjibi Sharma. However, the chief of the departments claim that such cases will continue unless the OCE improves its current system. “The responsibility of the department ends after submitting the exam question sets. The OCE is the sole body authorised to decide on the content,” said Amar Raj Joshi, head of the TU Department of English.

Education experts, on the other hand, blame the traditional educational and examination system for the current problems. “If the traditional questions are replaced with creative ones, the problems will largely be minimised,” said an education expert Bidya Nath Koirala.

source: The Kathmandu Post,6 Feb 2013