The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) has spotted 230 cases of mass copying in various examination centres after conducting sessions at different places.
On Tuesday students, who had failed to even write their own names in English, excelled in the subject, said The Indian Express report.
It was noted that students answered the same questions in English, Sanskrit and Hindi papers and they made the same mistakes too.
The GSHSEB conducted a session at various centres in Panchmahal district and found that over 200 class X students were cheating.
Out of the 230 cases, 96 cases were caught and confirmed during the class X English paper from one examination centre of Kavali in Shehara taluka of Panchmahal district, said the report.
The remaining 130 cases were confirmed by the state board after results were declared.
Apparently, evaluators had spotted “blatant similarities” even before students were called for the hearing. Results of the suspicious cases have been withheld, said the report.
“These students have now been barred from taking examinations for the next two-three years, action will also be taken against the teachers and centre supervisors who assisted THEM in mass copying,” said GSHSEB chairman A J Shah.
Panchmahal district centres have been under the scanner of the examination branch since 2017. There were huge variations detected in the OMR marks and subjective answers of students appearing for exams here. CCTV footage was also found to be tampered with.
“Since we were already doubtful about this particular centre, all these instances strengthened our doubts. GSHSEB Officer on Special Duty (OSD) M A Pathan said.
He added: “We decided to investigate these cases and therefore directed the evaluators to keep the answer-sheets of students from this centre separate and not mix with the other districts.”
Pathan asserted that the evaluators were told to spot what is “common” and “unusually different” in these answer-sheets.
The exams were held in March.