Parents, teachers demand right for children to cheat in Nepal exams

Mar 29, 2011, 8:00 GMT

Kathmandu - A group of parents and teachers demonstrated outside a school exam centre in Chappani in central Nepal, demanding that their children be allowed to cheat in crucial year-end exams.

In a separate incident, Constituent Assembly member Kiran Kumari Ray was detained after her daughter allegedly took her place during the first two exams. The daughter, who was not named, was reportedly caught at the weekend as she was about to take the third paper.

Ray was back at the exam centre Monday, accompanied by a group of supporters from the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist-Leninist, which she represents in the assembly.

The politician has already been disqualified from the exams by the Comptroller of Examinations, the government body that conducts the school-leaving certificate exams, but she still sat the fourth paper at the Barathawa exam centre in the south-central district of Sarlahi.

Ray has dismissed as 'rumours' the allegations that someone else was taking the exams for her.

Many parents are prepared to go to any length to get their children through the exams and into higher education.

Fighting has reportedly broken out between police and students and parents miffed at their offspring being barred from cheating since the exams started Thursday. There have also been cases of invigilators being attacked for not allowing cheats into the classroom and of impostors taking exams.

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