Class X Urdu medium students in North-East Delhi school given question paper in Hindi, English

Class 10 students of an Urdu medium school in Delhi were given question papers in Hindi and English instead of Urdu for their final exams. This happened to the students of the Urdu medium Dr Zakir Hussain Senior Secondary School at Jaffarabad in North-East Delhi for their Class X social science exam on Tuesday.

The students appeared for the exam at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya at Buland Masjid, near Shastri Park. It was the first exam for Class 10 students. The students complained to the examiners but they had to complete the exam in Hindi and English.

“Around 148 students had gone to the school to give their Term I exams. Questions were in multiple choice format and the students found it difficult to answer them in either of the languages. This will affect their final scores. CBSE was informed much in advance about our students and the Board should have ensured that Urdu question papers went sent,” said Dr Mohd Maroof Khan, principal of Dr Zakir Hussain Senior Secondary School. He underscored that the authorities complained to CBSE, but they haven’t got any response yet from the Board.

The principal of the examination centre said it was the fault of CBSE which sent the wrong question papers despite it being a centre for several years. “The CBSE has erred here and we have emailed them. It is not an issue of the examination centre,” said Geeta Rani, principal of Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya.

This was not the only issue spotted in the Term 1 exam for CBSE students. It was reported that CBSE issued an apology for asking the question “The unprecedented scale and spread of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 took place under which government?” The four options in the MCQ based paper were – Congress, BJP, Democratic and Republican. The question appeared in the CBSE’s Sociology test in the Term 1 Board Exams for Class 12.

CBSE posted on Twitter: “A question has been asked in today’s Class 12 sociology Term 1 exam, which is inappropriate and in violation of the CBSE guidelines for external subject experts for setting question papers. CBSE acknowledges the error made and will take strict action against the responsible persons.”

In a second tweet, it said: “The CBSE guidelines for paper setters clearly state that they have to ensure the questions should be academic oriented only and should not touch upon domains that could harm sentiments of people based on social and political choices.”