Hi-tech jammers to cut down on cheating for 9.65 lakh JEE (Mains) examinees this year

A jammer will be used for every 24 students in JEE (Mains) examination, the entrance examination for country's engineering institutions and the first step to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology scheduled to be held between January 8 to 12.

This is for the first time that jamming devices will be used in the examination, for admissions into IITs, NITs and other centrally-funded technical institutions, which is going to be only a computer-based test across 258 cities. Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said that 40,000 jammers are being used for the test for which 9.65 lakh students are appearing, "This is to ensure no examinee indulges in any malpractice," he said.

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"Installation of jammers on such a massive scale will ensure that there is no possibility of students using any devices that facilitate cheating in any form," Javadekar said. The students who have chosen to also appear in the test being held between April 6 to 12, will be ranked based on the basis of better of the two scores, the Minister also said. There have been some instances of students having tried using devices such as transmitters and Bluetooth devices in examination halls in the past.

The National Testing Agency, a specialised body to conduct various entrance examination that came into being a few months back, will conduct JEE (Mains) for the first time this year, which is being conducted twice.

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"Using jammers to ensure that students cannot access the internet via smartphones, tablets or transmitters in search of answers on the web or cannot connect with anyone else is a practice that is carried out in many developed countries and now we are also adopting it for important entrance examinations," a senior NTA official told this newspaper. Till last year, the test was conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education.

Sources in the higher education department of the HRD Ministry conceded that as reports of question paper leak in class X and class XII CBSE examinations last year had put a question mark on the credibility of central level examinations and prompted the government to use technology to prevent any such instances. "We will see several such measures in JEE, National Entrance cum Eligibility Test (for admission into medical colleges) and CBSE board examinations that are being adopted to prevent leakage of question papers and cheating," an official said.