AISA President Neha Bora has described the anti-paper leak law as ‘toothless’. He demanded abolition of NTA or fixing its accountability. Bora also blamed NEP for the paper leak and said that increasing the punishment alone will not solve the problem.
New Delhi [भारत]July 28 (ANI): All India Students Association (AISA) national president Neha Bora on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the central government over the repeated paper leaks in competitive examinations. He described the existing anti-paper leak laws as a “toothless” law that fails to address systemic issues.
Demand to abolish NTA and change NEP
Addressing a press conference in Patna, Bora stressed the need to dismantle the National Testing Agency (NTA) or make legal changes in its structure to fix accountability at the highest administrative levels. He also criticized the National Education Policy (NEP), which reportedly systematically centralized university, medical and engineering entrance examinations across the country, making the examination ecosystem more vulnerable to paper leaks.
He said, “If the need is felt to address this, then simply, an agency like NTA should be abolished, and secondly, NEP: a policy after which entrance exams were held across the country, be it medical, engineering or for various universities, their centralisation, the job of streamlining that centralization has been done by NEP. If you want to stop paper leaks, an agency like NTA, which works in a completely opaque manner, either you abolish it, or If you wanted, make it a statutory body through an Act of Parliament, with accountability.”
Why was the law described as ‘toothless’?
He further said, “None of these things were done. In fact, an easier, simpler path was taken. It amounts to trying to stop the entire system of paper leaks with a toothless act.”
The AISA president highlighted that merely increasing the penalties, such as increasing the jail sentence from three to five years or increasing the fine from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore, is merely a quantitative sideshow rather than a structural solution. He said, “We are calling it a toothless Act because whatever amendments have been made in it are quantitative in nature. Where there was a punishment of 3 years, it has been reduced to 5 years; where there was a fine of Rs 1 crore, it has been reduced to Rs 5 crore. As if increasing the degree of punishment will automatically stop paper leaks.”
Bora criticized the Centre, saying that such methods are a way for the government to show that they are taking punitive measures against exam irregularities, while it is having no impact on the ground level. “We understand that this is an attempt by the government to show that it is doing a lot, while doing nothing, so that no impact is felt on the entire network of paper leaks at the ground level,” he said.
Had a hunger strike for the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan
It is noteworthy that Bora had gone on a 23-day hunger strike along with activist Sonam Wangchuk during the 37-day-long massive student protests at Jantar Mantar, demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan from the post of Union Education Minister. On Saturday, Pradhan resigned “in the interest of students” and to ensure that the ongoing protests over exam irregularities are not exploited by “anti-national forces”. (ANI)
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