2 paper setters, 3 moderators debarred from confidential work related to CBSE exams in 202, Ministry tells RS

The Indian Express had reported that two subject experts had been removed from the board’s paper setting panels following two controversial questions in the 2021 Term-1 board examination. According to the ministry’s reply, a total of five subject experts have been removed from the paper setting and moderating process for the controversies.

The Term-1 Board examination, held in November-December 2020, had seen two major controversies. The first was over a multiple choice question in the Class 12 Sociology examination that asked, “The unprecedented scale and spread of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 took place under which government?” The options offered to answer this question were: “Congress”, “BJP”, “Democratic” and “Republican”.

The second was over the Class X English examination, which featured a comprehension passage in one set of question papers that was criticised as being retrograde and offensive to women as it seemed to draw a link between “lack of parental authority in the home” and “the “emancipation of the wife”.

In response to a question by Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala K Somaprasad on guidelines for paper setting, the Ministry submitted that in addition to guidelines in the Board’s Examination Bye-Laws such as that the questions should be set according to the syllabus of the subject and that no question is erroneously or ambiguously warded, there are instructions issued by the Board while assigning the confidential work of paper-setting and moderating.

According to the reply, these include “No question should be set in the question paper which may indicate any political bias nor it should be objectionable to a section of the society nor should it be contrast to the national policies, national integration, etc.”; “Special care should be taken to ensure that national leaders, personalities and instructions are not likely to be subjected to criticism through question paper set and administered by the Board”; “Ensure that the questions should be class-neutral, religion-neutral, not touching the controversial, social, political, critical issues under the prevailing conditions in the country”; and “Special care should be taken to see that no such question which puts students of a region to any advantage or disadvantage on account of specific reference to a place or region to set for All India Examination.”