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Strong rooms, 24x7 CCTV watch: How UP Board plans to stop mass copying
As per the data shared by the department of secondary education, 1,03,778 candidates will take the exams from Lucknow in 2025—1,961 more than the previous edition of the exams.
godhooli.sharma@htlive.com
With just a little more than two months left for the upcoming UP Board examinations, officials are confident that their efforts over the last five years to stop mass copying will bear fruit. The board’s plans for a conducive system in the state capital have been sketched out.
As per the data shared by the department of secondary education, 1,03,778 candidates will take the exams from Lucknow in 2025—1,961 more than the previous edition of the exams. While 53,831 will be writing the high school exam, 49,947 will take the intermediate tests. Out of the total, 50,206 candidates are boys and 51,175 are girls, who will take the exams in 126 centres proposed for the district.
Lucknow’s district inspector of schools (DIOS) Rakesh Kumar shared the ways by which the system has been strengthened.
“We place two CCTV cameras and a voice recorder in each classroom where the exams are held. The live footage from the cameras at a center is relayed at the college principal’s room, the district-level control room set up at Rajkiya Jubliee Inter College, the director’s office on Park Road in Lucknow and the board’s office in Prayagraj. The recordings are kept safe till the announcement of the results,” said Kumar.
He also spoke about installing strong rooms at centres. “Question papers are kept safe in a double lock almirah in the strong room of a centre. These rooms have a double lock system. The keys to the strong rooms and almirahs are with college principals and the static magistrates appointed by the district magistrate for the centres. A static magistrate is a class II or III officer,” Kumar added.
He said that the double-lock system and 24x7 CCTV surveillance helped in strengthening the exam process.
Also, about six to eight flying squads pay sudden visits to centers to check if the examinations are conducted with fair means. “We also form teams that conduct night surveillance of the examination centres to check for any discrepancies. As soon as an exam is completed, the copies are confidentially sent to the designated checking centres with the help of police,” said Kumar.
When asked about transparency in practical examinations, he said the board had asked schools to record the events of the exams, and the recordings could be asked at any given time by the board.
He said that the board was also deciding on whether to use artificial intelligence in the strong rooms.
