Thiruvananthapuram: One of the questions that has come up after the SSLC mathematics examinations leak was the ethics of allowing teachers unions to prepare question papers for the model examinations for higher secondary examinations. Mr P Harigovindan, president of the Kerala Pradesh School Teachers Association (KPSTA) told Deccan Chronicle that in 2005 after the SSLC examinations leak, the State government had decided to print question papers for the model examinations for SSLC. However, the higher secondary question papers were printed by a teachers association. “Our demand was that the higher secondary model question papers should also be printed by the government”, Mr Harigovindan said.
Mr M Shajer Khan, Secretary of the All India Save Education Committee, said that in 2015, the curriculum committee had decided to constitute a question pool under SCERT to prepare higher secondary model question papers. This decision was sabotaged to help the teachers unions who printed the model question papers. The government should implement the earlier decision. It should also ensure that the decision to ask the SCERT to prepare a question bank was restored, Mr Khan said. One of the allegations raised during the whole controversy was that 43 questions of the Geography model question paper prepared by a teachers association were repeated in the plus two examinations.
However, higher secondary education director M S Jaya in his report rejected the allegation, pointing out that only 17 questions were repeated in the question paper which was just a coincidence. In 2005, question papers of various examinations printed by V. Subramanian, owner of a printing press in Chennai, where the SSLC question papers of that year were printed, leaked. The involvement of Rajan Chacko who worked as a liaison between the press and Pareeksha Bhavan and his relations with various guide lobbies had come under the scanner. It was after that the decision was taken to take over the printing of SSLC examination question papers. This was after suspicions were raised about the relations of some teachers, who prepared the question papers, with the guide lobby.
