A day after Patna-based educationist Faizal Khan, popularly known as Khan Sir, and Motiur Rahman alias Guru Rahman, joined a protest against the “mediocrity” marks in the Bihar Public Service Commission exams, both were rejected by the police. Arrest or arrest them.
“Normalization”, as practiced in NEET-UG and some other examinations, is a statistical process of equalizing the scores of candidates appearing in multiple shifts. Scores of students taking the test in multiple shifts are compared, then added or subtracted to adjust their scores and arrive at final scores.
Its purpose is to address possible differences in the difficulty of different papers handed out in different shifts of the same examination.
A magistrate stationed on duty near the BPSC office told reporters on Friday evening that a day after he saw the two teachers “going with the police”, the police rejected the suggestion of their brief detention. The two teachers also did not come forward to confirm or deny the arrest by the police.
Anu Kumari, a sub-divisional police officer at Patna’s secretariat, told the media that the “reports” of Khan Sir and Guru Rehman were “baseless, misleading and inflammatory”. However, the police have admitted that they have detained more than half a dozen students.
Khan Sir and Guru Rehman, who run coaching centers in Patna, had joined the protest against the BPSC’s reported bid to implement a “normalization” process in the BPSC’s preliminary exams scheduled for December 13. On Friday evening, the commission issued the order as the protests escalated. Notice that it will not introduce normalization and will conduct the exam in one shift only as per its advertisement.
Around 4.25 lakh students are expected to appear for BPSC Prelims.