A Tale of Two Leaks

The country, or at least the more educated and hopeful section of it, is going through a severe bout of anger and frustration. The cause is two ‘leaks’, which is another word for criminal outing of examination questions. In the current exam season two major leaks have come to light. One is the Staff Selection Commission’s leak and the other is the CBSE leak.

To get an idea of the scale at which these leaks affect people, primarily young persons, but also their hopeful families have a look at these numbers: over 26.52 lakh young people appeared for the Combined Higher Secondary Level Examination (Tier-I) conducted by the SSC. For the CBSE’s class 10 and 12 exams, some 16.38 lakh and 11.86 lakh students are appearing respectively. That’s over 28 lakh students in all.

So, it’s not surprising that there is so much worry and anger in the country.

The two exams represent two important stages of the young Indian’s life. The Class 12 exam is perhaps one of the most important one in a person’s life because it is the key to entering higher education and any kind of better job. It is the most widely used measure of eligibility and qualification. The SSC exam is one which actually gets you the ‘better’ kind of job – a govt. job, though of a non-gazetted level.

And here is another thing to remember: the 26.5 lakh people who appeared for this particular SSC exam were competing for – hold your breath – 3259 posts! That’s over 800 applicants competing for each post up for grabs.

What all these numbers tell us is that both exams are practically a life and death issue for lakhs of Indians. Success or failure can make or mar a family’s life, in these times of raging joblessness and job insecurity.

And, that is why, if a gang of men hacks into the server of a private company that SSC has outsourced its exam conducting duties to, and downloads the question paper to sell it to candidates – then the other 26 lakh odd candidates are angry. In this cut-throat competition for govt. jobs, even 10-15 people getting an advantage would mean a life changing loss for thousands of others.

Same is the case with CBSE’s question papers’ leak. There is wild anger at the CBSE’s cavalier attitude. They were informed of the leak one day prior and yet they sat on their hands. Question papers were freely circulating on Whatsapp groups, faxes were sent to the Board but nothing moved. Then, when it was clear that the paper was leaked, the education minister came out to go through with his hand-wringing act and claimed that he couldn’t sleep the whole night.  

What was his solution? More technology, error-proof technology!

But, as data leaks all over the world in recent weeks have shown, no technology is “error-proof” or leak proof. CBSE has embraced the digital world with gusto, especially after Prime Minister Modi’s govt. took over. Everything is being put online. Yet somebody simply copied the question paper and put it on Whatsapp. End of ‘technology’.

In the case of SSC leak, the stakes were much higher because it was jobs that were on offer. So, the gang hired hackers and reportedly used some software that allowed them to access servers, with the help of moles inside the private company that was going to conduct the exam. The papers were allegedly sold for Rs.10-15 lakh each!

Ultimately, for both the leaks, the govt. has to be held responsible because they are so blinded by ‘technology’ and the private sector, and so free in encouraging the make money by hook or crook way of thinking that this was bound to happen. And, they are also responsible for encouraging the ideology that competition is the only way to move up and while competing, any means are right. After all, the prime minister himself gave a Man ki Baat talk to students and even wrote a book called Exam Warriors!