BSE Odisha to use watermarks, barcodes in Class 10 examinations 2025 to prevent paper leaks

NEW DELHI: Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Odisha has planned to use barcodes and watermarks in the Class 10 examination 2025 to prevent paper leaks. The board announced the move after a series of paper leak incidents took place over the past year, as per reports.

According to an Odishatv report, the BSE is set to enhance the security protocol for the upcoming Odisha Metric examination 2025 which is scheduled to be conducted from February 21 to March 6, 2025.

Recently, Srikant Tarai, president, BSE, said that the current system is being used in the question papers of the Odisha secondary school teachers eligibility test scheduled to be held on January 17 on an experimental basis.

"If this is successful, arrangements will be made to implement the same in the annual matric examination this year,” he added, reported by TOI.

The report further states that each exam paper in the Odisha Class 10 exam will be uniquely identifiable with a range of security features including watermarks, barcodes, and encrypted security numbers. This development aims to safeguard the credibility and sanctity of the question papers as the leaks were unfair to students and the board, it added.

The board also announced the schedule for Odisha Matric Examination 2025 on November 14, 2024.

As per the schedule, the exams will be held in one sitting and one question paper for regular and ex-regular papers. The exams will be conducted every day from 9:00 am to 11:30 am, starting from February 21, 2025.

According to the TOI report, in December 2024, the Odisha state assembly passed a bill that includes up to 10 years of imprisonment, for organized crimes in recruitment and entrance examinations. This came after centre passed the Public Exam (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024 in February last year.

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Odisha: Paper leaks in 2024

As reported by several local news portals in Odisha, there were several major paper leaks in 2024.

HSC examination: The english question paper of the annual High School Certificate (HSC) examination was reportedly leaked on February 24.

OSSC recruitment: The Odisha Staff Selection Commission Statistical Assistance Recruitment exam alleged that one of the boxes containing the question paper was opened before the examination began on October 6.

NEET UG 2024: In another incident, one accused was arrested in connection with the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 paper leak case on August 6 in Bhubaneswar.