The government installed a security printing press worth millions of rupees that it received in grants from donors three years ago to print confidential documents. It is lying idle. With the SLC examinations around the corner, the government has not been able to decide whether to print the question papers within or outside the country.

Donors provided a grant of Rs 160 million for the security printing press under the secondary education assistance program, but Janak Siksha Samagri Kendra (Janak Educational Materials Centre) is now preparing to print the question papers in India, as has been the convention. On the one hand, the printing press is lying idle, on the other, hundreds of millions of rupees are leaving the country. But printing question papers abroad in the name of maintaining confidentiality cannot be justified any longer.

The Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Authority and the Public Accounts Committee of parliament have already instructed the government to print the question papers within the country. The Ministry of Education formed a taskforce under the former education secretary to study the issue but it recommended printing question papers outside the country, citing confidentiality requirements. In the event that the papers are to be printed in Nepal, the study suggested taking strict measures to ensure confidentiality such as installing CCTVs and deploying plainclothes security personnel.

The committee's recommendations are rational but such measures alone will not ensure confidentiality of question papers. In any case confidentiality can hardly be maintained even if the papers are printed in India when we have to rely on government employees to distribute them to the districts. It is upto the government, the concerned authorities, and the employees of the press to maintain confidentiality of the documents printed, but they should be printed in Nepal.

READ ALSO:
Nosedive
Whither the disqualified?
"We are open"
Blind idealists