CBSE exam: Officials say the new system was tested on Thursday before instructions were sent.
Hundreds of students in Delhi today sat in classrooms waiting for question papers, as the first CBSE exams for Classes 10 and 12 since
last week's paper leaks were delayed by more than an hour in the confusion over a new "URL-based" delivery system to ensure maximum security. Officials from many schools collected question papers around 11 am - at least 30 minutes after the exams were to start.
The CBSE or Central Board of Secondary Education had earlier said examination centres would receive an encrypted copy of the question paper, which they would need to download and print on their own. The schools were to receive an email link to the question papers, log in using passwords sent for the purpose, and then print over 2,000 sheets of paper by 10:15am - 15 minutes before the exam - under surveillance.
Class X students had language exams like Sanskrit, Urdu and French and Class XII students had Hindi today.
But for some reason, schools were informed at the last minute that it was back to the old system, in which the CBSE gets the papers printed at a designated printing press and sends them in a sealed package to its centres. The CBSE centres hand over the sealed packages to banks. Schools send officials to collect the papers from the banks.
CBSE officials take sealed exam papers to a school in New Delhi
It was 11.30 am by the time the students received the papers. They came out around 3 pm. Many of them had feared that today's
paper was leaked too.
"We waited an hour, we were very anxious...The teachers didn't tell us what happened," said Dharmender Thakur, a Class 12 student, after the exam.
Officials say the new system was tested on Thursday before the board sent instructions to exam centres.
To execute its new plan, the board had also asked schools to arrange high-speed internet, with dongles as backup and generators. But officials say many schools said they didn't have the resources or enough staff.
Nearly two million students are having to
re-sit the finals for two subjects after the papers were leaked last week. The board has announced that Class 12 students will take an economics re-exam on April 25. The class 10 math exam, if held at all, will be in July and only in Delhi and Haryana, said the board on Friday.