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Bengal

WBJEEB to not upload OMR sheets, answer key

Thousands of medical aspirants who will appear in the state medical entrance examination scheduled on July 20 are depressed over the decision taken by the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (WBJEEB) not to show the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets and answer key of the candidates.

For the last three years, the WBJEEB has been uploading the OMR sheets and answer key for all candidates appearing in the examination, following the publication of result, so that the candidates can verify their answers.

The OMR sheets used to be uploaded and available on the website for about 48 hours for the students. This would help the medical aspirants to know how many questions he/she had answered correctly and what marks they would get. This not only helped the candidates but also the joint board to rectify their mistakes. The candidates could also check their OMR sheets with the answer key, which contained all the right answers for the questions.

However, the WBJEEB has decided against uploading the OMR sheets and answer key this year. A senior official of the board said as there is not enough time this year, they will be unable to do it for the candidates.

It may be here mentioned that other examination boards upload the OMR sheets so as to bring transparency in the entire process of selection of successful candidates. There is also a Supreme Court ruling in this regard which mandates that candidates must be shown their OMR sheets.

On previous occasions, technical errors would sometimes arise on the part of the WBJEEB, as a result of which some candidates used to get lesser marks than they should have actually got. The errors would later be rectified only because the candidates got to see their OMR sheets, verify their answers with the answer key and then approach the board.

Many of the students who will appear in this year’s state level medical entrance examination said that they would remain in the dark because of the move by the WBJEEB. They will not be able to challenge the board if they get an unexpected result and the deserving candidates may suffer if there are any errors on the part of the board.

A guardian of a medical aspirant in the state alleged that last year there were errors in the answer key where wrong answer were marked as right, as a result of which there were mistakes in the counting of marks. The medical entrance examination in the state got delayed as there was confusion over the implementation of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in the state. The exam will be held on July 20 and the admissions process must be completed by September 30 as per the order of the Supreme Court.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which will hold NEET phase II, will also upload the OMR sheets of the candidates around August 17, after the examination will be held 24 July.

Many guardians have raised the question if the CBSE can hold an examination for four lakh candidates and publish the results within time by uploading OMR sheets, why has the WBJEEB faied to do so. Around 75,000 medical aspirants will appear in this year’s state medical entrance examinations.

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