Punjab government takes strict measures to check cheating in exams

Punjab government takes strict measures to check cheating in exams


Chandigarh: The Punjab government has implemented stringent measures to combat cheating in examinations conducted by the Punjab State Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training (PSBTE & IT).
The government has made it mandatory for the institutes to conduct the examination under CCTV surveillance and the board has spent a significant amount of money in installing CCTVs in government polytechnics and ITIs. The mapping of as many as 220 polytechnic and pharmacy institutes has been done for the ease of students.
Technical education and industrial training minister Harjot Singh Bains said the CCTV monitoring board has spent around Rs 3 crore on installation of CCTVs at 26 government polytechnics and 115 government ITIs. CCTV cameras have also been installed at newly inducted centres of the department of higher education and Punjabi University Campus, he said.
Bains further said for the first time the board had set up a control room at the board office to monitor the CCTV cameras installed at all the examination centres. A roster of officials has also been prepared to monitor the exam centres at the control room. This has resulted in complete transparency in the exams, the minister added.
In previous examinations, held at private institutes, there were numerous complaints of unfair means being used by students, which were not only causing loss to intelligent and hardworking students but were also a blot on the reputation of the technical education system, that’s why the technical education board has implemented these examination reforms, he added.
He said higher education institutions and the Punjabi University campus had also been used as examination centres for the first time. The department of higher education and state technical universities also cooperated in the whole process. During the examinations, surprise checking of the exam centres is also conducted by the flying squad teams of the department of technical education and technical education board, said Bains.
Apart from this, officials from the district administration have also been entrusted with the task to check exam centres in their respective districts, he added.
The minister said 14 flying squad teams with principals and 52 faculty members from the department of technical education, medical education and higher education had been deputed as observers to various exam centres.