Malappuram: Of late, controversy is going hand in hand with the Kerala Public Service Commission! Close on the heels of the police constable test cheating case allegedly involving SFI leaders, the PSC itself has been accused of “copying” questions.
The PSC has allegedly lifted an entire set of questions for the Criminology section on the jail department welfare officer grade-two test from the website of Oxford University Press.
The questions from the website have been lifted in the OMR test without even changing the options or syntax.
The Oxford University Press website has 24 questions as model questions in the Criminology section and all questions have four options each as answers. From the first 12 questions on the website, the PSC paper has lifted 10.
In the PSC test, these 10 were the only questions from the Criminology section. The people who lifted the questions did not even bother to change the sequence of the options.
This "blatant cheating" in the test conducted for those with graduation and post-graduation in social work has raised concerns over the seriousness with which such tests are conducted by the authorities.
If one searches for 'basics of criminology quiz' on Google, anybody can access the model question papers on the website of Oxford University Press. It has also been alleged that the straight lift from the website could have been done to "leak" questions.
Meanwhile, candidates have said that there were errors in the answer key released by the PSC after the test.
The credibility of the PSC has been sullied recently after irregularities in the conduct of the police recruitment exam were reported in the wake of a probe into a stabbing case reported from a college located in the Kerala capital. Last week, the Kerala High Court had observed that a thorough investigation should be held into, at least, the latest appointments made by PSC in a bid to restore public's faith in the government recruiter.