Whatever It Takes : Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers

"We were aware of the possibility of cheating -- but we thought it would be a question of [an exam] leak or someone would use the internet, which is why it was restricted in many cities."

"In one case, we caught a student teacher after the exam and had to take him to a doctor to identify and remove the Bluetooth device from his ear."

"...This was a totally new modus operandi. [They] are getting so tech savvy."

"The slippers had a sim card and the candidates had a tiny Bluetooth bug implanted in their ears. In one case, we had to take a doctor's intervention to find the bug as it was so deeply implanted."

Priti Chandra, police official, Bikaner, India

Photo AFP/Getty Images

 

India has an immense population of 1.3 billion people. So it shouldn't be surprising that there were 1.6 million applicants taking the government examinations for student-teachers in Rajasthan state on Sunday. Among that number of potential future teachers was a group of 25 enterprising students who planned on passing the exam with flying colours, securing their coveted teaching posts in the country. All it took was money, no need to study and know their subjects thoroughly enough to have confidence in their own ability to learn and to absorb the required information convincingly enough to pass the qualifying exam.

 

Unfortunately, the students who had bought into a fraudulent new scheme, and who bought the items they would need to acquire the teaching certificates they planned on receiving, underestimated the keen observational intelligence of those involved in holding and administering the tests. They soon enough realized that their purchase of an innovative bit of technology would avail them nothing but failure and possibly jail time.

 

Those administering the exam, fully aware of the problem that cheating has been in the past, prepared for it this time around by authorizing a temporary cut to mobile internet access. Someone with an astute eye happened to notice that a group of people appeared to be behaving strangely while outside the exam hall on Saturday evening. In all likelihood testing the reception for the Bluetooth devices meant to accompany them into the exam chamber the following day.

 

They had paid out $8,142 each to acquire a pair of flip-flops. Not just any kind of footwear, but of a type that was truly unique, with receiving devices slipped into the sole of the shoes, enabling receipt of calls meant to be sent wirelessly to tiny receivers resting in the ears of the student teachers. Accomplices on the outside were to call the aspiring teachers' flip-flops to dictate correct answers. 

At least twenty-five students were found to have bought the wired flip-flops, according to investigators. Information that was shared with several other districts alerting them to the situation before the start of the exams, led many testing centres in the state to have students taking the exam remove their footwear beforehand. 

In India a handsome living can be earned by professionals hired to impersonate others, taking exams in their place, or stealing, or illegally procuring exam papers, then reselling them. A country of opportunities is also one of innovative illegality. It's not that such government jobs pay well. They are coveted for the extras that come with them; employment security and benefits such as lifelong pensions.