(This article deals with the growing issue of paper leaks and the problems with the Indian Examination, particularly competitive, and provides some points to ensure the credibility of the exams and the education system as a whole is upheld)

India’s centralized exam system is losing credibility by the day. Much of it is to be blamed on the recent series of events in which the National Testing Agency (NTA) postponed various exams of national level. As GOI, which sacked NTA’s chief in a bid to curb the growing distrust and resentment, has added fuel to the fire. It is now upto the creative thinking of the government to reform exams.
Fixing accountability and rescheduling exams may be all very well, but what about the impact of such decisions of postponing and even cancelling exams has on the minds of the young students who battle many hardships just to clear the exams. In any case, should a three-hour test be a deciding factor of millions of young people.
We need to revisit the system of exams as a whole and then frame out a model that asses the individuals while neglecting their state differences and evaluate them based on their strengths and applicability of the concepts learned. It involves array of modification, from changing the mindset to the use of technology and at last implication of rules and regulation to impose fairness in the exams.

Macauley to Maitreyi mindset

Macauley style of learning is based on rote learning based mindset. This the prevalent method of testing the students for admission in various colleges and entrance exams.
The main protagonist of this school of learning is none other than the coaching institutes, which are in almost every corner of streets. The rise of coaching hubs like in Kota, Sikar, Hyderabad and many more that are all over India. This rise should have raised red flags long ago that India’s entrance exam can be cracked by intensive coaching for two years give or take.
No person can question about the knowledge imparted to the students by these coaching institutions since the education system of schools is for everyone to see. Questions are raised on the mechanism of the coaching institutions and the psychological pressure and fear that it puts the students under. Several students have committed suicide due to this surmounting pressure and fear of failing in the exams. However the main cause of concern was the actions taken by the coaching institutes in the redressal of these growing mishaps (if one would call them mishaps). Coaching institutes have gone to the extent of jamming windows and removing fans to ensure students do nothing but study and there in no untoward incident when stress drives them up the wall.
Maitreyi Mindset: We need to break free from this colonial legacy by adopting and enacting an Indian-centric system, a version of which had been long been forgotten. This system must move away from the system of measuring memory as in the Macaulay system to a more holistic system that measures innate inclination, IQ(Intelligent Quotient), and EQ(Emotional Quotient as for measuring the emotional intelligence of a person). This the basis of the Maitreyi mindset of learning as exemplified by the Upanishadic story of Maitreyi, India’s first woman scholar. As the Greek scholar Plutarch said, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled”. It can be understood by this line that simply mugging up the facts and answers will do more harm than good, but if one questions the functioning of the things around him and then get to know the mechanism then that will be the real essence of knowledge and fun of learning.

Use of technology

In a nation where millions of aspirants wants to be doctor or engineer, where candidates and their parents are open to paying lakhs to get their hands on a question paper and its answer key, what could possibly stand in their way and what should be the modus operandi of conducting the exams? Technology hold the answer for it.
AI comes as the protagonist in this case. AI may have disrupted job scenarios, but it also taught us to adapt and embrace uncertainty. AI can be deployed to design and pick questions from a vast question bank according to the individual that is giving the exam. In this way the questions can be personalized and unique to each and every candidate.
IN furtherance multiple-choice questions could be replaced by fill-in-your-choice like in subjective answers but short. This practice will allow infinite possibilities in solutions. It will be burdensome task for the evaluating officers to give marks and club all the passed candidates in a hierarchy under the same head, since there will be no common ground for evaluation and more than one answer could be correct, here also AI can prove to be a boon. Major of the evaluation can be left for the AI to be completed, however the AI has to be a fail-proof model to ward off possibilities of any external threat to the software of the AI as posed by hackers and other programmers, but every system has its own perils and efforts should be made to not let this happen.

Constituting laws to prevent cheating and paper leaks

This point comes at last because if the earlier two points are implicated then there will be very less implication of law and statutes to prevent cheating and paper leaks. If each and every question are different of every candidates there will be no paper leaks and cheating since one won’t have enough time to look up for different question with other candidates, moreover, the difference in answer even if one or two questions are same will prevent anyone from using unfair means.
The Centre, though, is already up to the task and has already notified the rules required to operationalise The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, the anti-cheating law passed by the Parliament in February. The law has come into force from June 21, after it was notified in the official gazette. In the Uttar Pradesh the government has imposed life sentence and fine uptoRs. 1 Crore if a person is found violating Section 3 of this Act (Section 3 of this act enlists 15 actions that amount to using unfair means in public examinations “for monetary or wrongful gains”).
Scope of The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024: Section 2(k) of The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2004 defines a “public examination” as “any examination conducted by the public examination authority” listed in the Schedule of the Act, or any “such other authority as may be notified by the central government”.
Since all exams conducted by those public examination authority is under the ambits of this act. The Schedule lists five public examination authorities:

1. Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which conducts exam like the Combined Defense Services Exam (CDS), Combined Defense Services Examination, and the most famous- the civil services exams like the IAS, IPS and IFS.
2. Staff Selection Commission (SSC), which recruits for group C (non technical) and Group B (nongazetted) jobs in the central government.
3. Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs), which recruits Group C and D staff in the Indian Railways.
4. Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), which hires at all level for national and regional-rural banks.
5. National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the JEE (Main), NEET-UG, UGC-NET, the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), etc.

Various other reforms like conducting exams more than once in a year, like in the US, and in some Exams of UPSC can also be considered to address the wide spectrum of problems. Decentralizing is another option that the government can adopt.
Ironically the trust in the centralized exams was created by a distrust of every other. State Governments cannot be trusted, boards cannot be trusted, and universities cannot be trusted. BUT, a centralized bureaucratic agency conducting exam could be. Now that trust has also come crashing down, leaving destroyed lives and a devastated system in its woke. Now the whole education system of India is in shambles but there is a silver lining.
By embracing these aforementioned methods the Government can not only try to regain the trust of the students and their parents but also change the current testing and studying methodology for the better. This would optimize the national talent pipeline India holds. It would reduce stress on the students, reduce the stigma of failure. As the nation with the world’s largest youth demographic, aiming to be a global power and a developed nation it is important to extract the talents of the youth to the fullest. Such a reformation of the competitive exams system is no longer just an option, but an imperative.

Editorial Comment

One experience of the editor himself can be put on record. As an Adjunct professor in a National Law University, he had used the “open book examination” in the semester exams of the university. The setting of the paper was strenuous, the paper was a mix of objective, subjective/descriptive and case study. The students were allowed to use any bare act or book conforming to syllabus, but they could not talk to each other or with the invigilator. The maximum questions that could be answered by the students even by using all the means that are regarded as cheating if used in normal exams, was anywhere between 5 to 7 at max. One important point of this exam was that extension of time, even by a minute was not allowed.
The result was that barely 1-2% of the students completed all their questions. The score of marks obtained hovered around the median of 72(scale of 100), this was a contrast to the previous traditional method of exams were the median of the marks were as high as 91 on the scale of 100.
The frustrated students formed a delegation and reached me to stop this open book exams and return to the old ways of examination. Keeping in mind the welfare of the students, I reverted back as there was also pressure on the library to provide that number of bare acts and all the other necessary materials that are important in conducting an open book examination.
On the prima facie this method can be strenuous on the paper setter, teachers and the evaluating officers, but it will drastically reduce the number and the problem of paper leaks and cheating. The effective system can be designed around this suggestion and legal measures can also be introduced after some experiments on lower level exams. LEE (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. and LEPALc are dedicated to the cause for having a fair and transparent exams and may think about further solidifying its stand on this matter and carryon a project around it.

Disclaimer:

This compilation of fact and evidences from various sources (Google, Newspaper, etc.) is done by Siddhant Upadhyay.
The views are personal and does not represent the views of Legal Ecosystem Envelopes (O.P.C.) Pvt. Ltd.