Making JEE (Main) Cheat-Safe: Biometric Attendance And Frisking Even After Toilet Breaks

The JEE-Main 2024 examination is being made cheat-safe. Now, candidates appearing for the engineering entrance exam will have to undergo frisking and biometric attendance after toilet breaks as well, according to National Testing Agency (NTA) officials.

This is being done to ensure zero incidents of cheating.

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Aim to make exam foolproof

"The move is aimed at ensuring there are no cases of use of unfair means or proxy attendance. We have strict mechanisms in place already, but the idea is to make the exam completely foolproof to ensure there are zero incidents," NTA Director Subodh Kumar Singh said.

Not just students but also officials, observers, staff members and even those serving refreshments will have to undergo the same process of frisking and biometric attendance.

At present, aspirants are screened at the entry and biometric attendance is also recorded there.

"The same process will be extended to other exams as well in the longer run," Singh added.

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From Whatsapp sharing to hacking software: Instances of cheating in JEE Exam

Five students were caught cheating in the JEE Advanced 2023 exam held in June 2023. Reportedly, the students carried their smartphones into the exam centre.

Among the five, two were caught clicking screenshots of the questions from the computer screen and sharing them via WhatsApp. The students had hidden the phones in their innerwear while the candidate who took the Secunderabad exam had hidden the phone in his shoe, police said.

Cases were registered against the students in different police stations on charges of cheating and other sections under the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Telangana Public Examination (Prevention of Malpractice and Unfair Means) Act.

In 2022, CBI arrested a Russian national, Mikhail Shargin, for hacking the JEE Main 2021 examination software and allegedly aiding 820 students to cheat. The probe had revealed that "remote access" was provided from an exam centre in Sonepat, Haryana.

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When is JEE Main 2024?

The JEE Main 2024 Computer-Based Test (CBT) will be conducted from January 24 to February 1, and the results will be announced on February 12.

The JEE (Main)-2024 will be conducted in 13 languages - English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

This year, the NTA has received a record 12.3 lakh registrations for the exam. The second edition of the bi-annual exam will be conducted in April, from April 1 to April 15, 2024.

The Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main is the screening test for admissions to centrally-funded technical institutions such as NITs and IITs. The top 20 per cent of the merit list becomes eligible to sit for the JEE (Advanced), the entrance test for Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

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