Bihar: Impossible to stop exam cheating

NEW DELHI: Authorities in eastern India were left red-faced on Thursday after images of relatives scaling the walls of a school exam center to pass notes to candidates were broadcast on local television.
Dozens of people were shown clinging to the windows of one four-story building in the eastern state of Bihar, where more than 1.4 million teenagers are sitting their school leaving exams.
Other images showed police officers and school staff standing by as people passed study aides to candidates inside examination centers.
The images went viral on Twitter and made national headlines, but Bihar’s education minister P. K. Shahi refused to accept any blame for the cheating. “You tell us what can the government do to stop cheating if parents and relatives are not ready to cooperate?” he told reporters. “Should the government give orders to shoot them?”
He said that cheating-free examinations were not possible without the cooperation of parents.. “The government cannot stop cheating in exam,” he said.
Shahi said the situation in Bihar was so bad that at least four to five people helped every student to cheat. It is not the first time that exam cheating has been exposed in Bihar — more than 1,600 students were disqualified in 2013 after similar videos emerged.