The council has approached other agencies, like OAG, to pursue the matter

BCSEA: The official, who is alleged to have leaked the class XII English II paper last month, has not yet admitted to leaking the paper.

Bhutan Council for School Examination and Assessment (BCSEA) completed its preliminary investigation into the leak a week after a student filed the complaint.

The complainant, a girl student, received questions at 11:30pm on December 12, the night before the final paper of the year, English II paper.

Through the text messages, the investigation team traced the leak to a ‘dealing person’, who allegedly shared a hard copy of the paper to a girl student in one of the schools in Paro.

BCSEA officials ruled out teachers and council officials.  While the alleged official denied any involvement, the student, on two occasions of interview, gave in writing that the man had given her the paper.

“But we have no legal teeth to conduct any further investigation, so we’ve approached other agencies for help,” a BCSEA official said. “We can’t push the person to admit.”

Education minister Mingbo Dukpa, who is the chairman of the council’s board, said work is ongoing.

Kuensel learnt that the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is studying the case.  If further investigation were needed, it would forward the case to police to intervene.

But police sources said it has not been engaged, as of yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, parents and students are still questioning how the paper was leaked in the first place, given the stringent measures in place, such as undertakings from the dealing individuals of the question papers, to prevent such incidents.

Bardo-Trong’s member of parliament Lekey Dorji, recently tweeted, “Besides the talk of re-exams, I am interested in how the paper leaked, and who and how is the culprit made accountable.”

The council board reviewed its earlier decision on the paper leak after the cabinet intervened and asked it to reconsider its decision.  Exactly a month after the leak, the board decided to go ahead with evaluating the paper.

The council recalled English teachers to evaluate the paper at the College of Science and Technology and they would complete the evaluation on January 25.

By Tshering Palden