Spare no efforts in checking exam leak: Par panel to SSC

Asserting that the sanctity of government jobs examinations must be maintained at any cost, a Parliamentary panel has asked the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) to spare no efforts in ensuring that such tests are free from any malpractices.

The SCC, which conducts exams to select candidates for various central government jobs, had to cancel nine examinations, fully or partially, in the last five years.

Most recently, it had to recommend a CBI enquiry into allegations pertaining to the conduct of Common Graduate Level (Tier-II) examination 2017.

Such cancellation of exams is a complete waste of efforts and resources of both the aspirants and the government and also dims the image of the Commission in the eyes of general public, the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice said in its report tabled recently in Parliament.

The job aspirants lose their precious time and effort that they have put in preparing for those exams, it said.

On the other hand much of time and money of the Commission is lost and the user Departments have to wait more for getting shortlisted candidates for appointment, the panel said.

Therefore, the committee recommends that learning from the past experiences, the commission should spare no efforts in making the process of examination free from all types of malpractices and technical glitches, the report said.

The committee feels that the sanctity of examination process must be maintained and it is equally important that the trust of public in general and of examinees in particular, in the examination process is maintained at any cost, it said.

As the examinations have gone online and the information technology infrastructure for conduct of examinations are hired from private institutions/labs and technical service providers, these entities should be closely supervised by the commission and adequate number of central government officers should be deployed at examination centres in invigilation/supervisory capacity, the panel suggested.

In addition to this, regular audit of the hardware and software should be carried out by government agencies for making the examination foolproof, it added.