Students who appeared for the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) at an examination centre in Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar district on Sunday alleged that they were made to write the exam twice on account of a question paper mix-up.
Students said that question papers meant for Hindi and English medium students were interchanged mistakenly. An NTA official confirmed the mix-up to this newspaper, but said students were given extra time to complete the paper once the mistake was corrected. However, the exam centre superintendent in a factual report submitted on the incident on Sunday evening recommended a re-test to NTA.
The incident, earlier in the day, had resulted in students and parents protesting in front of the Army Public School, Sriganganagar, the exam centre.
“The examination started at 2pm. Around 4:30pm, after two and half hours after the start of the examination, people from the exam centre came to us and said that we have been mistakenly given the bilingual question paper meant for Hindi medium students and those studying in Hindi medium have received the question paper meant for English medium students,” said Akshita Garg, one of the NEET aspirants.
Garg added that officials at the examination centre first gave the students another question paper, but subsequently said that they will have to write the examination once again.
“I had completed the entire examination in two and half hours when they took away our question paper and gave us the question paper meant for English medium students, asking us to write the exam afresh. We were given a new question paper meant for English medium students. Since the question paper was the same as the bilingual one, we had completed our examination by 6pm. But then, they said that our examination has been cancelled and we will have to write it again in another time slot,” said Garg.
“We asked the people from the exam centre to inform our parents. Later, they made an announcement that we won’t be allowed to take the question paper with us after the examination. We have prepared for this examination for the past two years. How is it fair that even after writing the examination, we are asked to do it once again?” Garg added.
In the controversy that ensued, the students along with parents protested in front of the examination centre.
“The question papers were taken from the students and the kids are extremely panicked over the incident,” said Jasleen Kaur, a faculty member at a coaching institute in Sriganganagar, who reached the spot.
Till late Sunday evening, officials from the district administration and the local police were present at the examination centre, trying to resolve the issue
Manoj Kumar Meena, SDO Sriganganagar had reached the spot after the incident to maintain law and order in wake of the controversy.
Late Sunday evening, in a factual report sent by centre superintendent, Raja Sharma, to the observers for the NEET exam, it was recommended that the examination should be conducted again for the centre at Army Public School, Sriganganagar.
“It was informed to the control room that some students are facing the issue of the booklets being in English medium and we found out that the students who opted for Hindi medium received the English-medium booklet. The problem was looked into and reported to the city coordinator, who on the directions of the National Testing Agency, tried to solve the problem. Out of 936 students, there were 238 students, who opted Hindi medium for the exam and the rest were for English medium. A majority of the students were affected because of this problem,” says the factual report.
The report adds that following the mistake, some booklets were also exchanged with photocopied OMR sheets.
“The instruction received by the city coordinator after consultation with National Testing Agency as they told me, was to exchange the questions papers of Hindi and English Medium and restart the exam with photostat of OMR Sheets. We talked with students however the students refused to do so. It was informed to the city coordinator,” says the report.
“The city coordinator visited the centre along with the observer of the school. City coordinator along with observer of her school entered some of the rooms and exchanged booklets along with xeroxed OMR Sheets. They tried to convince the students. Some of the students agreed for the same and some didn’t agree,” adds the report.
The report says that after a while, the centre superintendent and other officials reached the conclusion that it was not possible to solve the problem.
“At around 5:20 pm, when the exam was about to be over, it was too late to solve the problem. After sometime the City Coordinator called the National Testing Agency and informed them about the situation and that it cannot be resolved. We were handed over the phone and I explained that it is not possible to solve the problem and exam should be rescheduled. As per my recommendation, the exam should be conducted again for the center code 392501,” says the factual report by the centre superintendent.
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