The Office of the Controller of Examinations has warned that anyone who is caught helping examinees to cheat in SLC exams will be punished with a jail term of six months or a fine of Rs 100,000 or both.

SLC exams for this year (2070 BS) will be conducted from March 20-28. A 35-point Code of Conduct made public by the OCE has stated that the guilty would be liable to the punishment as per the Section 17(1) of the Education Act, 1971. The Code of Conduct aims to conduct the biggest examination in the educational sector in a peaceful and fearless environment and to maintain its decency, sanctity and fairness.

Earlier, the OCE used to take action against the persons involved in helping examinees to cheat under the Some Public (Offences and Punishment) Act, 1970. “We will not spare anyone indulging in irregularities. The Code of Conduct will be strictly followed to make the SLC exams fair for every single student,” Examination Controller Bishnu Bahadur Dware said.

The examination coordination committees led by the concerned chief district officers have been empowered to bring the guilty to book in line with the existing law.

Though the OCE has been warning of stern action against the persons disturbing the peace in the examinations, it has not maintained records of those who have been indicted or who were punished in the past. The charter of Code of Conduct will be applicable to superintendents, invigilators, employees of the OCE, school management committee, guardians and other stakeholders.

The 35-point Code of Conduct will be pasted outside exam halls across the country. The OCE said the examinees will not be allowed to possess any electronic gadget, including mobile phone sets, except an ordinary calculator. Superintendents, invigilators and monitoring officials have also been asked to keep their mobile phone sets in silence or vibration mode to maintain peaceful environment in examination halls. The examinees will be required to be in their respective school dress, if any, while appearing in the exam. Visually-impaired students can keep facilitators who are studying in grade eight.

As many as 5,66,085 students — 4,19,352 under the regular category and 146,733 under the exempted category — will be appearing in the exam at 1,836 exam centres. Last year, 5,27,060 students had appeared in the SLC exams. The OCE has assigned 1,836 superintendents, 2,757 vice-superintendents, 22,593 invigilators, 7,530 assistants, and 18,360 security personnel across the country.

Kathmandu accounts for the largest number of examinees with 33,085.Manang has the least number of examinees — a total of 88The exam will be conducted from 8am-11am.

source:the himalayan times,14 march 2014