Terming the Punjab School Education Board’s (PSEB) decision to shift school examination centres to other institutions falling within school clusters as ‘a cruel joke on students’, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday said that they were being harassed unnecessarily by such illogical and whimsical decisions.
It was a wrong assumption that this decision would help to check copying in school examinations; instead it would increase the stress level of students because they would have to commute to other schools for each examination, said SAD spokesman Charanjit Singh Brar.
“This is nothing but physical and mental harassment,” he said.
Brar appealed to the PSEB to immediately roll back the “insensitive” decision and take the help of technology as well as monitoring teams to curb copying.
Stating that there were many ways to curb cheating during examinations, Brar said that the current move would not help in this regard. “All staff assigned to examination duty is outsourced from other areas, so the students cannot take any advantage by giving their examinations in their own schools. If the PSEB is really serious about curbing copying, it should use closed circuit camera technology,” he added.
He said that the decision would adversely affect girl students who would have to travel long distances to sit in the examinations at other institutions.