Parents cry foul over Olympiad, demand probe

For the past couple of years, the majority of students selected for the National Standard Exam in Junior Science (NSEJS) - the first stage in the selection process for the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) - have been from Andhra Pradesh.

This year, out of the 539 students selected, close to 456 students belong to Andhra Pradesh. Even more strangely, around 126 students appear to have been selected from the same centre in Hyderabad.

Fearing there might be malpractices involved, around 50 parents and a private teacher from Mumbai have written to the Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT), which is responsible for the conduct of NSEJS, asking it to investigate the matter immediately.

In the first list declared in the last week of December, 2011, 286 students out of 314 were from Andhra Pradesh, only two were from Maharashtra but 94 were from one centre in AP. A few days later, the National Steering Committee extended the list to include 225 more students, out of which 170 were from Andhra Pradesh and five were from Maharashtra; again, 32 students were
from that particular centre.

Saurabh Khanna, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and a teacher at a private coaching institute in Mumbai, wrote to the authorities on behalf of the parents. He said, “This year more than 91% of the students have been selected from Andhra Pradesh.  A similar trend has been going on for the last two years.
The fact that AP fails to outperform in the NTSE (standard VIII) or the Senior Olympiads indicates that something is amiss.”

He added that when he traced the centre from where there were a “suspicious” number of students selected, it was found that it did not have a website, and none of the phone numbers listed on any of the directories was working. I wonder why this junior college is interested in the conducting of the NSEs. Also, we have information that this centre has tied up with a private IIT coaching institute.”

However, Professor ML Oglapurkar from IAPT said that this was because Andhra Pradesh had a large number of participants. “Compared to other states, AP’s participation is over 42%. It’s only natural that the maximum number of students will get selected from there.”