The state secondary education board has blamed the staff of Nigamnagar Sarwaswata High School in Cooch Behar for Tuesday’s leak of physical science question papers but teachers of the institution denied the charge.

Some teachers of the Dinhata school had mistakenly distributed question papers of physical science, instead of history, prompting the board to defer the physical science test from March 3 to March 22. The board has also ordered a probe into the goof-up.

“A preliminary probe has confirmed that the board had sent the correct question papers to the school (sathik proshnopatro pathano hoyechhilo). The mistake resulted from the negligence of a section of the staff of Nigamnagar Sarwaswata High School,” said board president Anjan Sengupta.

Teachers of the school, where students of two institutions were writing their test, denied they were at fault.

Anirban Nag, an English teacher of the school, admitted that his colleagues were to blame for distributing wrong question papers but said they had no role in bringing the wrong packets to school.

“Our teachers were not responsible for bringing packets containing the physical science question papers, along with those of history papers, to the school,” Nag told Metro.

Given the enormity of the task of conducting Madhyamik — around 10.04 lakh are sitting for the 2011 edition — the board has developed a complex chain to reach question papers to the test venues.

A senior board official said packets containing 10-35 question papers, in multiples of five, are sent to treasuries or police stations a few days before the examination.

Teachers from the exam centres — each centre doubles as a venue and also has a number of venues attached to it — collect the papers from the treasury or police station concerned in the presence of representatives of the board, government and police.

Teachers of each venue fetch the papers from the centres on exam days, again in front of board, government and police officials.

Nigamnagar Sarwaswata High School is an examination centre as well as a venue. If its teachers had brought wrong packets from the treasury, as the board has claimed, then the goof-up must also have escaped the attention of board and government officials.

“Whatever be the case, the teachers should have noticed that they had carried wrong papers to the class before distributing them,” said a board official.

Many teachers feel such “mistakes” are bound to recur as long as the board continues with the centralised system of conducting Madhyamik. “With around 2,400 centres and venues, it’s impossible for the board to monitor all aspects of the examination,” said a teacher.