CHAKWAL, Feb 8: The Punjab education department has found a novel way to please the chief minister by showing excellent performance in the field of education.

It has been learnt that papers of different subjects in the ongoing class 8 examinations are out before the actual day of the exam. The question papers reach the invigilators a day earlier and they solve them for their students so that they can obtain high marks.

The exam of eighth class started on February 5 and will end on February 13. The questions which are to appear in the morning papers are sent through SMS to the invigilators and heads of schools.

The papers of Mathematics and Science were totally out, said sources in the schools who did not want to be named.

They alleged that the Punjab examination commission, which was responsible for conducting the exams of 5th and 8th grades, was itself involved in the malpractice.

It has also been learnt that teachers having good repute have not been appointed as invigilators. “The question papers are given to invigilators an hour before the exam begins and the invigilators solve them and during exam they recite the answers before the students,” a teacher said.

Some teachers also send their students to a certain location in the evening where they inform them about the leaked questions.

“My head teacher and colleagues are angry at me as I refused to be part of such a practice,” said a teacher of a government high school. He added that this method had been adopted to show best performance in the exam.

“I received a text message which carried answers to different questions meant to be asked in the objective portion of Mathematics papers the next day,” said Qazi Saqib Naveed, the district president of Muttahida Mahaz-i-Usatza. “This is a very shameful for and is a slap on the face of Punjab examination commission,” he maintained.

“I appeal to the chief minister to order an inquiry into the matter and bring all those responsible officials to book,” he demanded.

When contacted, Executive District Officer (education) Rao Atique Ahmad admitted that such text messages were sent by unknown people: “We cannot stop such text messages but are trying our best to hold the exams in a transparent way,” he added.

When asked whether any person involved in cheating had been punished, he replied, “Nobody has been punished but we did an inquiry against some persons.”