Fourteen students were expelled and equal number of impersonators were caught during matriculation examination on Tuesday, the second last day of the examination.
The language test was conducted at 1,532 examination centres on Tuesday. Students will be taking the sixth paper, which is optional, on the last day on Wednesday.
This year, the matriculation examination was different from the previous, with Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) introducing new techniques and methods to check unfair means.
Apart from online application and admit cards, the board introduced barcoding of answersheets. Digital marking of question papers was the only process, which the board failed to implement this year.
Sources said the board was interested in introducing the digital marking system, but the state government didn't approve to it because of high costs. A senior board official said: "According to estimates, the per copy cost for digital marking was Rs 40. And if a student is writing six papers, the cost would be Rs 240. Since the state government didn't approve an increase in the examination fees from the existing Rs 540 (to be borne by the students), going for the digital marking system would have cost Rs 80 crore to the BSEB for Intermediate and matriculation examinations. Shouldering Rs 80 crore every year would have been an extra burden for the board."
Since BSEB introduced stringent methods to bring transparency in the examination, the board decided to go easy on questions this year.
Himanshu Rai, a student spotted at Miller School, said: "Compared to previous years, this year the papers were easier. The questions were from the syllabus."
A board official justified saying: "Since we introduced some stringent measures to check unfair means and human interference during the evaluation process, the board decided to make the test a tad softer so that the pass percentage doesn't dip drastically."
BSEB officials and members of the governing board heaved a sigh of relief on Tuesday after the examination was conducted smoothly. But they decided to introduce a new mechanism from next year to check rumours of question paper leaks on social media at bay.
A governing board meeting was held at the BSEB office on Tuesday, which was chaired by board chairman Anand Kishor.
He said: "The examination board has decided to have question papers in four sets (A, B, C, D) from the coming year. The papers, which will have both objective and subjective questions, will have different serial numbers in the four sets." The board has decided to introduce four different sets because there were reports of question papers going viral on WhatsApp both during Intermediate and matriculation examinations.
The governing board also decided to decentralise the examination centres next year. The existing norm says students from a particular school are allotted centres at a single school. However, from next year, students from one school will be allotted examination centres at more than a school.
Kishor said: "The board has decided to introduce the new system because we have been hearing reports about centres being managed by the school authorities. If students from a particular school are allotted examination centres at different centres they have to manage more than one centre, which will be a Herculean task for them."
