Class 9 PAT paper leaked, goes viral on YouTube

Maharashtra's Class 9 PAT exam faces scrutiny after Marathi question paper leaked online. SCERT confirms multiple subject leaks and investigates.

MUMBAI: The Performance Assessment Test (PAT) conducted for Class 9 students by the Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has come under serious scrutiny after the question paper for Marathi was leaked online. A video showing the detailed answers to the leaked paper went viral on YouTube, sparking outrage among educators and raising serious concerns about the integrity of the examination process.

Class 9 PAT paper leaked, goes viral on YouTube

The video, uploaded on a YouTube channel two days before the exam, has over 200,000 views. SCERT has identified two YouTube channels involved in the leak and has confirmed that police complaints are being filed to block these channels and investigate the source of the leak.

SCERT sources told HT that it wasn’t just the Marathi paper; papers of multiple subjects, including Hindi and mathematics, have been circulating online over the past seven days. The leaks are not limited to Class 9; Class 6 papers too have been outed, raising questions about systemic flaws in the examination framework.

When contacted for a comment, SCERT director Rahul Rekhawar was unavailable. However, he later issued a statement confirming that an investigation was underway. “We are filing FIRs to shut down the identified channels,” he said. “But we will also work with the police to trace how the papers were leaked.” Rekhawar, however, added that the question paper would not be changed.

PAT is designed to assess academic progress in students from Classes 1 to 9, and is conducted alongside their annual exams from April 10 to 25.

Mahendra Ganpule, former vice-president of the State Principals’ Association, said that the government was not taking the PAT exams seriously. “The papers are delivered to schools completely unsecured like newspaper bundles,” he said. “If leaked papers have been available on social media for seven days, what’s the purpose of this evaluation test?”

Senior educationist Dr Vasant Kalpande also questioned the very premise of PAT, calling it more of a survey than a serious academic evaluation. “We never get reports or outcomes from this so-called assessment,” he said. “If it’s conducted so irresponsibly, how can we trust any results that follow?”

Further adding to the confusion, a clash of schedules has emerged between SCERT and school principals. While SCERT has mandated that all exams from Classes 1 to 9 follow their published timetable, the Principals’ Association has stated that it will conduct annual exams as per its own schedule, adhering to SCERT’s timeline only for PAT.