NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, FEB 15
The Tamil Nadu School Education Department has suspended Thiruvannamalai Chief Educational Officer (CEO ) S Arulselvam from service with immediate effect after Class 10 and Class 12 revision exam question papers were leaked on Sunday.
The leak was reported on Sunday after photos of the test papers were circulated on WhatsApp groups.
The Tamilnadu School Education department has said it will take criminal action against two private schools in Thiruvannamalai district after revision test question papers for classes 10 and 12 were leaked a day before the test.
The Joint Director of the School Education Department inspected the schools in Vandavasi and Polur taluks as part of the inquiry. The leaked question papers are science (Class 10) and mathematics (Class 12).
Accompanied by the Chief Educational Officer Arul Selvam, Joint Director Ponkumar visited the schools and met the school authorities and education officials.
Meanwhile in a statement, School Education Commissioner K Nanthakumar said, ‘Following the information that the question papers were leaked, the department has conducted field inquiry. It was found that the question papers were leaked from Auxilium Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Polur and Hasini International Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Vandavasi. The department will initiate criminal action against the persons who are responsible for leaking the question papers.’
He added the department will also initiate action against district level officers who did not follow the guidelines issued by the director of government examinations. He, however, clarified that the revision tests will continue as per the schedule.
Officials said the leak came to light on Sunday after the missing question papers went viral in social media. Educational officials lodged a complaint with the police.
Based on a complaint by the District Educational Officer, a special police team, led by Visweswarayya, DSP (Vandavasi), led a separate probe. The team made inquiries with school officials, residents and block-level educational officials in Vandavasi and Polur on Monday.
Education officials in the district lodged a complaint with the Ponnur police, after correctly identifying the seal of the schools on these papers.
It then placed CEO Arulselvam under suspension, after it was found that he had violated the rules for the distribution of question papers. The CEO has to store the exam papers for both classes 10 and 12 in district strong rooms, and hand the papers over to schools on the days of the exams. But reports citing department authorities said that in Tiruvannamalai, CEO Arulselvam handed over the test papers to the schools directly before the exams, instead of keeping them in strong rooms and distributing them on exam days.
