Medical education minister SA Ramdas made a ‘surprise’ visit to Venkateshwara Engineering College, Yelahanka, on Thursday morning, on receiving information that students from 43 nursing colleges in Bidar were taking their annual examinations in the city.
Medical education minister SA Ramdas made a ‘surprise’ visit to Venkateshwara Engineering College, Yelahanka, on Thursday morning, on receiving information that students from 43 nursing colleges in Bidar were taking their annual examinations in the city.
What he saw at the centre left the minister stumped. “It’s hard to believe. A student named Tobi Thomas, from the MC Vasanth Nursing College, just continued copying with impunity, right under my nose. He was debarred immediately. All the papers were seized,” the minister said.
Third-year students of nursing from colleges in Bidar were attempting the paediatrics question paper on Thursday. Only, there was little need for the students to do any attempting — they were all given photocopies of the answer sheet, from which they were free to copy answers. The copies were earlier distributed in the examination hall.
The students were probably only doing what they had done the year before, and in their first year. And there is good reason to believe that many did not recognize that the man in their midst on Thursday morning was the state’s minister for medical education. Even the ‘invigilators’ in the hall were taken by surprise as the minister paid them an unannounced visit.
Around 2,400 students from Bidar were allegedly involved in mass copying at six centres in the city. “We have found that 2,400 students were involved in malpractice. After this incident, we have put off the examinations,” the minister said.
The minister was puzzled that students studying in Bidar should come all the way to Bangalore for their examinations. The bureaucrat responsible for allowing this, YH Sali, secretary, Karnataka State Diploma in Nursing Examination Board, has been suspended.
Ramdas is determined to get to the bottom of the racket. “I will not leave it at this. I have appointed an inquiry committee. A report will be submitted in 10 days,” he said.
Even those exams already held have been cancelled. The cancellation of the exams, however, applies only to Bidar district.
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