The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will all be geared to ensure that no mass fraud incident occurs during the All India Pre-Medical Entrance Test (AIPMT) on May 1 next year.
The HRD Ministry, at a meeting with the CBSE, has finalized a foolproof plan – which will include over 1,000 test centers across the country with handheld metal detectors, cellphone signal jammer, and fingerprint scanners – to arm a repeat of the notorious 2015 episode of the entrance exam prevent.
While the metal detectors and jammers (used with government permission) will check the use of audio-visual equipment, the use of fingerprint scanners will prevent the entry of fraudulent candidates into medical schools.
That was the CBSE asked to rehabilitate the test using metal and bug detectors at all 1,065 centers and even signal jammers on a couple, in addition to introducing a controversial dress code that banned everything from headscarves to belted boots.
The test governs admission to 15 percent of undergraduate medical and dental college places in the country, the rest is filled by the state-level entrance exams. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Jammu and Kashmir, however, are exceptions: they fill all of their medical and dental seats through their own exams. Four lakh set the test in July when the CBSE installed metal detectors and bug detectors at all 1,065 centers, apart from stationary cell phone blockers on a couple, to check for malpractice.
Now comes the moral lessons, albeit shorter than “value education” at CBSE schools, for an exam 15 percent of undergraduate medical or dental college is supposed to fill seats in all states except Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. “You can cheat others, but never your conscience, your god,” claims Sophocles, a contemporary of Doctor Hippocrates, whose oath is upheld on ethical standards to medical graduates.