The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will all be focused on ensuring that no incident of mass fraud occurs during the All India Pre-Medical Entrance Test (AIPMT) to be conducted on May 1st next year.
The HRD Department, at a meeting with the CBSE, has finalized a foolproof plan - which will include arming over 1,000 exam centers across the country with handheld metal detectors, cell phone jammer, and fingerprint scanners - to allow a replay of the infamous 2015 series of entrance exams impede.
While the metal detectors and jammers (used with government permission) will verify the use of audio-visual equipment, the use of fingerprint scanners will prevent the entry of fraudulent candidates into medical colleges.
That was the CBSE prompted to refurbish testing with metal and bug detectors at all 1,065 centers and even signal jammer on a few, in addition to introducing a controversial dress code that banned everything from headscarves to strap boots.
The test regulates admission to 15 percent of the undergraduate medical and dental college places in the country; the remainder is filled by the state-level entrance exams. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Jammu and Kashmir, however, are exceptions: they all fill their medical and dental seats through their own exams. Four lakh continued the test in July when the CBSE installed metal detectors and bug detectors at all 1,065 centers, aside from stationary cell phone blockers on a few, to check for malpractice.
Now comes the moral lessons, albeit shorter than the "value education" awarded at CBSE schools, for an exam supposed to fill 15 percent of undergraduate medical or dental college 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 the doctor Hippocrates, whose oath to uphold ethical standards is awarded to medical graduates.