An education ministerial investigation committee finally submitted its report yesterday, making a set of recommendations to avert any recurrence of question leaks in the country.
Additional Education Secretary Sohrab Hossain, who headed the committee, submitted the report to Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid at the ministry.
Earlier, on April 10, the ministry formed the seven-member committee with Sohrab in the lead, a day after the Dhaka Board postponed its English Second Paper examination scheduled for April 9.
The deadline for submitting the report had been extended twice as the committee had failed to submit its report within the deadline.
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, Sohrab said they had given a set of short term, midterm and long term recommendations, some of which need time to be implemented, in order to avoid any repetition of question leaks.
He added that some reforms had also been suggested in terms of preparing and distributing question papers, which they believed, could reduce the risks of question leaks in the exams.
As a long term solution, the committee suggested sending out question papers via the internet, which it believed, hardly carries any risk of question leak.
When he was asked whether all the schools and colleges are equipped with internet facilities, investigation committee chief Sohrab said such facilities should be provided in the long run.
The committee also suggested making a good number of question papers to avoid question leaks and selecting the question paper through a lottery system, only on the day of examinations.
The committee, however, has not found any clue as to where the question paper was leaked from.
Investigation committee chief Sohrab was asked whether any source of question leak was found and he said a person had been arrested in this regard in Faridpur. The committee suggested lawmen grill him to elicit a clue.
He also said they had not found any other examination question paper leaks.
Seeking anonymity, a committee member said they had found out the leak of mathematics examination question paper but after learning about it, the board had changed the question paper set fixed for the examination.
Terming the English second paper question leak a black mark on his five and a half years as education minister, he told reporters after receiving the report that the ministry would do all it could to avoid any question leaks in future.
