Taught in English, students in Uttarakhand baffled after they get question papers in Hindi

To make the students more fluent in English, last year, the Uttarakhand Education Department had changed the medium of instruction in schools for certain subjects to English for students of class 3 and class 6, starting from the academic session of 2018-2019.

However, it seems the concerned authorities didn’t register the move correctly, leaving the department red-faced. Students appearing for science exams on February 22 received their question papers in Hindi.

Trying to explain what might have gone wrong, a senior State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) official told the Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity that: “We had set papers in both English and Hindi and given both soft and hard copies of the same to the education directorate, from where it was sent to the districts.

“District-level education officers should have printed the question paper based on the medium of instruction used for the given subject (science). What can SCERT do if they did not check it on time?” the official added.

All examination question papers are set by the SCERT, they are then printed by district-level officials and sent to the respective schools.

Dehradun Chief Education Officer Asha Painuly said in the report that to salvage the situation, the English teachers in the respective schools translated the questions to help the students.