Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today termed the Punjab School Education Board’s (PSEB) decision to shift school examination centers to other institutions falling within school clusters as ‘a cruel joke on students’, saying they were being harassed unnecessarily by such illogical and whimsical decisions.
In a statement here, SAD spokesman Charanjit Singh Brar said that it was a wrong assumption that this decision would help to check copying in school examinations; instead it would increase the stress level of students because they would have to commute to other schools for each examination. “This is nothing but physical and mental harassment”, he said.
Stating that there were many ways to curb cheating during examinations, Brar said the current move would not help in this regard. “All staff assigned to examination duty is outsourced from other areas, so the students cannot take any advantage by giving their examinations in their own schools. If the PSEB is really serious about curbing copying it should use closed circuit camera technology. Use of such technology will be effective to watch students as well as monitoring agencies”, he added.
Brar said that it was unfortunate that in the name of curbing copying, the students are being harassed during the exams. He said the decision would adversely affect girl students who would have to travel long distances to sit in the examinations at other institutions. He appealed to the PSEB to immediately roll back on this insensitive decision and take the help of technology as well as monitoring teams to curb copying.