Madhya Pradesh: CCTV monitoring of state board exams flags cheating, action ordered against negligent staff
Bhopal, February 10
The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education began its examinations for Class 12th on Tuesday, with the Higher Secondary English paper being conducted across the state.
According to an official release, the examination was held at 3,604 centres, where around 6,12,609 students appeared to take the exam.
"As part of a pilot project to ensure continuous monitoring, the MPBSE installed CCTV cameras at 226 examination centres across nine districts this year. Live streaming from these cameras was carried out during the examination period at the Board headquarters as well as control rooms set up at the offices of district collectors and district education officers. The initiative aims to prevent cheating and enable real-time monitoring of activities at examination centres," the statement read in the release.
"During the monitoring from the central control room, instances of suspected cheating by students were observed at certain centres and supervisors were found to be negligent in the discharge of their duties. Following these observations, instructions were issued to the concerned districts to take immediate action," it added.
The release further highlighted that the CCTV monitoring helped to establish effective control over the activities of examination centres. In the same episode, six cheating incidents were reported at a Bhopal examination centre, and instructions were issued to take disciplinary action against the concerned supervisors.
According to MPBSE, the board exams for Class 12th began from February 10 and would continue till March 7 while the board examinations for Class 10th would begin from February 13 and conclude on March 6. All the examinations are being conducted in one shift from 9 am to 12 noon.
— ANI
Reader Comments
While monitoring is good, I hope the action is taken against the staff who were negligent and not just the students. Often, the pressure from parents or local influences makes staff look the other way. The system needs to be strict from the top.
Only 226 centers out of 3604? That's just a pilot. They caught cheating in some, imagine what's happening in the other 3300+ centers without cameras! The board needs to speed up the rollout. Our education system's credibility is at stake.
As a teacher, I welcome this. It supports those of us who want to conduct exams fairly. But the real issue is the immense pressure on students for board marks. We need to reduce that pressure, then cheating will automatically reduce.
Interesting use of tech. In many countries, proctoring is moving online for remote exams. This live-streaming to collector offices is a good intermediate solution for India's scale. Hope the disciplinary action is transparent and serves as a real deterrent.
Good initiative, but let's not forget the privacy concerns. Who has access to this live feed? Is it stored securely? The order should be: prevent cheating, yes, but also protect the students' privacy. The policy must be clear on data handling.
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