The 2016 Bihar School Examination Scandal: A Tale of Corruption and Reform

The scandal which happened in 2016 known as the Topper Scam involved manipulation of examination result in Bihar School Examination Board. This emerged on May 31, 2016 when media had interview sessions with state toppers of Arts and Science stream, where they failed to answer basic questions indicating more appalling of the credibility of Bihar education system.

The Revelation

Ruby Rai, the Arts topper of the Vishun Roy College in Vaishali district made headlines when she failed to define Political Science and said that, it was a subject connected with cooking as she referred it as Prodigal Science. Likewise, Saurabh Shrestha, the topper for the Science section, confused between aluminum and attacked as the most reactive metal and did not know the type of bond in water [H2O]. Lack of basic comprehension elicited cross national concern and cast aspersions on the credibility of the examination system. Compounding the scandal, the third rank holder in Science, Rahul Kumar, was also unable to answer basic questions in the subject.

Background and Irregularities

The examinations held in February-March of 2016 revealed mass-copying situations which were less regulated as compared with the events of the past year. However, systematized inadequacies were still present. Although the merit list was prepared on May 10 , there were some problems and thus, the results were displayed on May 28. The overall pass percentages…