II PU Chemistry paper leaked for the second time in 10 days; re-exam scheduled for April 12

BENGALURU: Over a lakh students were traumatised Thursday morning as the II PU Chemistry question paper had leaked for the second time in ten days. The re-examination has now been pushed to April 12.

Experts too expressed displeasure over the PU department's failure to adopt technology to plug question paper leaks.

The II PU exam is a high-stake one for lakhs of students in Karnataka, followed by a slew of entrance exams such as the CET, COMEDK, JEE, AIPMT among others. The existing, traditional PU exam system is vulnerable to question paper leaks, said Nagendran Sundararajan, executive vice-president at MeritTrac, a testing and assessments company .

"Vulnerability starts right from the point question papers are set manually . This needs to be automated by allowing a computer to randomly generate question papers." The entire process --printing question papers, transporting them to a central facility and then to exam centres --takes about a week and is dependent on too many personnel, he observed."You can host the papers out of a secure centre in an encrypted form and exam centres can take printouts only at a designated time. We're talking about a process that takes just 45 minutes," he explained.

Hundreds of students stormed the PU office in Malleswaram even as primary and secondary education minister Kimmane Rathnakar ordered suspension of 40 personnel from the PU exam section for dereliction of duty. A three-member committee comprising IAS officers Rame Gowda and PC Jaffer will supervise the Chemistry re-exam on April 12. The Belagavi-headquartered Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) became the first in Karnataka to adopt online question paper delivery system (QPDS) four years ago. Passwords are issued to exam centres to access a secure server and print out question papers just 30 minutes before the exam."All you need is a high-speed printer and internet connection," former VTU vice-chancellor H Maheshappa said.

V Balakrishnan, a former Infosys board member, called the leak fiasco "a tragedy in a state described as India's Silicon Valley." The government should take a relook at the system, he said."It is high time bureaucrats get help from technology professionals."

The JEE became online expressly to deal with question paper leakage issues, said Vamsi Krishna, cofounder of online tutoring startup Vedantu. "It's a no-brainer for me that (PU) authorities should use technology to prevent such mishaps."