While copying has long been the chosen path of students who lack the confidence to clear exams on their own merit, there now appears to a Plan B in place to help them pass, shockingly put in motion by some schools themselves in their pursuit of notching up better academic records.

Take a top school in Thiruvananthapuram which was concerned about the performance of seven of its 500 students appearing for the recent SSLC examination.

Worried that they would not clear it and put a blot on the school's image, the teachers decided to conduct an emergency meeting with the parents of the seven and Plan B was set in motion.

The school suggested the parents get a learning disability certificate for their children to help them clear the exams.

Four of the seven parents said no as they did not want their children to be labelled as such, but three immediately lost no time in producing the required certificate.

When the SSLC results came out last Thursday the three students who had the disability certificate, cleared the exams with A+ in four subjects, while the four students who didn't have it,
failed.

Unfortunately, resorting to Plan B is fast becoming common practice in a lot of schools faced with a similar problem as the government relaxed norms for the SSLC examinations, say sources.

Statistics show that of the 4,69,919 students who took the SSLC examinations this year, 9,224 appeared for it under the category of children with special needs (CWSN).

If this is accepted at face value it would mean that two percent of Kerala students have learning disability, which is clearly untrue.

What many schools seem to be doing is taking advantage of the facility provided by the Department for Integrated Education for the Disabled (IED) to students with real disability to get special consideration during examinations and valuation.

On the basis of a disability certificate, the student is given 10 minutes additional time to write the exam and an instructor accompanies him to the hall to help him out.

Also, if the student manages to get a medical certificate that says he or she is 40 per cent mentally retarded, he gets 25 per cent additional marks during valuation.

The misuse of these concessions by schools to push up their pass percentages has not gone unnoticed by the authorities , say sources.

“We have brought this to the attention of the authorities several times. But, the government directive is such that you can do nothing about it,” said a teacher, who headed an invigilation team in Kottayam.

The weak students who get a disability certificate to clear the SSLC examination often end up doing the same in the higher secondary exam, where they go on to get A+ in several subjects, add sources.

Ask deputy director of the IED, R Rajan and he says that students can gain concessions when writing examinations only if they produce a legitimate medical certificate for disability carrying the signatures of the parents and the recommendations of head of the institution and district education officer.

But whatever the procedure, it clearly does not stop the unscrupulous from putting Plan B into motion.