Can moving India's biggest entrance examinations from pen and paper to computers finally break the country's seemingly endless cycle of exam question leaks? The issue gained fresh urgency after weeks of protests over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) medical entrance exam forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Protesters say more than 20 students died by suicide, with their families blaming the exam scandal for their deaths. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded by appointing an expert task force headed by Nandan Nilekani of the Indian IT giant Infosys to overhaul the National Testing Agency (NTA), which runs the exam. Modi recommends shifting the tests to computer-based testing (CBT) to make them more secure.
However, hearing petitions on the reforms, the Supreme Court welcomed the government's efforts but cautioned that computer-based testing (CBT) alone would not eliminate the risk of exam paper leaks. That warning captures the challenge facing the task force: can technology fix what is ultimately a problem of trust, governance and incentives?
The contrasting NEET paper leaks of 2024 and 2026 illustrate why the answer is more complicated than simply digitising exams. NEET uses four versions of the question paper, each containing 180 compulsory questions across physics, chemistry and biology.
In 2024, the paper was allegedly leaked after printing, when sealed trunks were opened during transit to exam centres. Investigators said the breach was limited, involving about 40-50 people, and the Supreme Court ruled the exam's overall integrity remained intact, rejecting calls for a re-test.
In 2026, the leak allegedly happened before the paper left the NTA, with teachers accused of leaking it from within the system. Officials say the safeguards on printing, transport and distribution held up. The vulnerability lay at the source, before the secure chain of custody even began.
For Prof V Kamakoti, director of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and a member of the task force, the two episodes expose where trust in an examination system ultimately resides. "The roots of trust lie in two places: the teachers who set the question papers and the invigilators who supervise candidates. If either is compromised, the system is vulnerable," he told the BBC.
Officials have proposed extensive CCTV surveillance, with live feeds monitored from central control rooms. Kamakoti says AI could go further, automatically flagging suspicious behaviour - such as prolonged conversations between invigilators and candidates - so officials can intervene in real time. "At least the invigilator part we can certainly handle."
But he argues that the bigger leap in security lies in moving exams online. Computer-based testing, he says, would make India's examinations far more secure. "Compromising the technology would be extremely difficult," he said, pointing to more than a decade of experience running large-scale computer-based examinations.
IIT Madras manages Swayam, the Indian government's online learning platform, and has extensive experience conducting large-scale computer-based examinations, including Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and advanced Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), required for admission to the country's top engineering colleges. These systems, Kamakoti says, rely on "red teaming" - teams that constantly probe systems for weaknesses - and "air-gapped" networks physically isolated from the internet. "No one can hack into that network," he says.
But even the most secure technology cannot eliminate the human factor. For Kamakoti, that is where the examination system's "root of trust" lies. "The biggest challenge is to get trusted question setters," he says. Preparing a NEET paper is a complex exercise. The exam is conducted in 13 languages, including English, making it one of the world's largest multilingual entrance examinations. It requires subject experts, translators, reviewers and moderators. Kamakoti estimates that around 50 people may be involved in setting papers. "If even one person in that entire set is compromised, we are gone," he said.
Computer-based testing removes one major vulnerability by eliminating the need to print, transport and store millions of question papers. NEET has remained a paper-based exam, where answers are shaded on machine-readable answer sheets, because it is conducted in a single session for all candidates to ensure fairness.