The government has formed a three-member committee to investigate the leakage of question papers for the entrance examination conducted by the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT).
The committee led by chief of the National Centre for Educational Development Surya Prasad Gautam includes Tek Bahadur Thapa, a CTEVT Board member, and a legal officer at the Ministry of Education.
According to Gopal Khanal, Vice-chairman of CTEVT, the team will thoroughly investigate the case and figure out the party responsible for leaking the papers.
The question papers for the Proficiency Certificate Level entrance examination in Nursing, Agriculture, Pharmacy and Health, which were held on Saturday, were found to have been leaked on Friday evening in Itahari, Sunsari. A copy of the papers, obtained by Raju Khadka, president of the Workers' Association at CTEVT, was faxed to the Kantipur Publications office at 9 pm on Friday.
"We were shocked when our Biratnagar team discovered that the leaked papers completely matched with the real ones," said Khadka.
A team led by Nir Bahadur Jirel, Khadka and external superintendents Santa Bahadur Adhikari and Radhe Shyam Thapa matched the leaked papers to the ones for the examination on Saturday at 8 am, after the exam had begun.
The team, which was in the eastern region to publish the result of the exams by July 29, returned to Kathmandu saying they would not mark the answer sheets on moral grounds. The fate of around 35,000 students who sat the test is uncertain as the CTEVT has not taken any formal decision in the case.
Meanwhile, the three workers' unions at the CTEVT have demanded that the examination be annulled and another held soon. They have sought stern action against those involved in the crime.
The unions claimed that the papers were sold for Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000 in the involvement of CTEVT officials.
In a statement on Tuesday, the unions said the CTEVT officials' reluctance to take any concrete step towards cancelling the test provided room for suspicion on whether top officials themselves were involved in the act.
(Source: Kathmandu Post)
