NCTB warns of action for question ‘leaks’ in half-yearly exams

The National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) has issued an emergency message to the heads of educational institutions amid the allegations of leaks of questions on social media, hours before the half-yearly exams for grade VI to IX under the new curriculum began on Wednesday.

The message warned of taking strict actions against those headteachers found responsible for leaking the directives issued about assessment of students on social media.

The NCTB said that there is a system of tracking the download and distribution of the evaluation directives through unique user IDs of “Noipunno” app.

The NCTB sends the question papers only to school headteachers through the "Noipunno" app. Only the headteachers have access to this app to maintain records of each student's progress.

The headteachers were asked to be more responsible in distributing the questions.

The half-yearly exams for grade VI to IX under the recently introduced curriculum began yesterday. Approximately ten million students took part in the assessment process.

Under the new system, student evaluation is being conducted based on the questions or directives of the NCTB prepared centrally.

The headteachers receive the questions online on the website the day before the examination. The headteachers then download, photocopy, and distribute the question papers to students.

Allegations have been raised that the question papers were available with solutions on social media on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the exams day. The question papers for yesterday’s exams were found identical with the leaked ones.

In the wake of the situation, the NCTB chairman professor Md Moshiuzzaman sent the urgent message to the headteachers through the relevant departments.

The message said that while leaks of the question might not be a major concern as the students won’t get any advantage even if they knew these in advance, yet the problem lies in the questions circulating on social media.

Some unscrupulous quarters, through social media, are widely circulating misleading, false and irrelevant answers to the questions. These misleading answers are confusing the students, teachers and guardians, resulting in hindrances in the assessment process, the NCTB message added.

The message reads that sharing the questions sent to the headteachers with anyone else is unethical and unbecoming of a teacher’s demeanor.