Madhyamik 2011: The March 3 physical science exam will be held on March 22

The physical science exam of Madhyamik 2011 has been deferred from March 3 to March 22 as some teachers at a Cooch Behar school mistakenly distributed question papers of the subject, instead of history, on Tuesday.

The state secondary education board said the publication of results would not be delayed because of the change in the schedule.

This year’s Madhyamik, for which around 10.04 lakh students are appearing, was to end on March 7.

“We were forced to cancel the March 3 physical science exam and postpone it to March 22 as question papers of the subject were mistakenly distributed among examinees on Tuesday,” board president Anjan Sengupta said.

“A number of precautions are taken to prevent such mistakes. We need to find out what went wrong,” he added. The state government has ordered a probe.

A similar goof-up nearly marred the ISC examination on Monday, when a few teachers at a city school mistakenly distributed the questions for the test among ICSE examinees who wrote their paper earlier in the day. The authorities salvaged the situation by keeping the Class X examinees confined in a room till the ISC test began.

Nigamnagar Sarwaswata High School, where the mix-up occurred, is in Dinhata. Students of Abu Tara High School and Ambari High School were writing their test there.

The sub-divisional officer of Dinhata, Augustine Lepcha, said three packets containing 30 physical science question papers were mistakenly brought from the treasury strong room and the papers distributed among the students.

“The papers were taken back immediately after the examinees alerted the teachers. However, a count revealed that one question paper was missing,” Lepcha said.

According to the rules of the board, opening a wrong packet of question papers and distributing them among students in advance constitutes “a leak”.

The officer-in-charge of the exam centre, Sukumar Kar Chowdhury, filed an FIR with Dinhata police station. Cooch Behar district magistrate Smaraki Mahapatra said an inquiry had been ordered.

Problems related to question papers had led to a change in the Madhyamik schedule at least twice. In 1990, the geography test had to be deferred following a leak of question papers. In 1994, the secondary education board had ordered a re-examination of mathematics after students complained of a tough paper.