Indian families pay to help their children cheat on entrance exams

Now it seems that some are taking advantage of the exam chaos.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some middle-class families pay criminal gangs thousands of dollars to help their children pass these exams.

Indian Medical Entrance Exam Fraud

Cheating is a particularly common problem in India’s highly competitive medical entrance examination, also known as the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET).

This year, about 2.4 million students in India sat for the exam, vying for a place in a medical school, which is about 0.02% of that number.

“There are very few people who can do it right away,” one student, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, told Business Insider.

She spent a year preparing for the bachelor’s and master’s exams. During that time, she woke up at 4 in the morning and studied at least 10-12 hours a day.

Some prefer to take an easier route.

The Journal found that several students had paid $15,000-20,000 to illegally look at the paper for the exam. BI could not independently verify the figures.

Police have made several arrests in connection with exam fraud after results revealed that 67 people had achieved perfect scores in this year’s NEET exams.

“Questions are being sold for exorbitant prices,” Ashok Rathore, a police officer investigating cheating in India’s medical school exams, told the Journal. “It’s a hub of desperate students, parents, tutoring centers and printing presses.”

Leaked questions

One student told BI that several Telegram channels specifically dedicated to exam preparation had messages encouraging students who were “struggling with exams and didn’t have time to study” to reach out for “help.”

“My friend said he was asked for around Rs 15,000 ($180) to access the private channel where they shared the questions,” she said.

BI contacted the Telegram account and offered “help”. The person said they can provide next year’s medical entrance exam questions for around 1 lakh rupees ($1,200).

High scores on these exams mean coveted “spots” at state and nationally run medical colleges.

People with money can still legally get a place in private medical colleges, if they pay tuition fees ranging from $115,000 to $145,000.

However, some students with the financial means prefer to cheat and secure a government position instead.

“It makes a lot of economic sense,” a senior medical advisor with knowledge of the matter told BI. “The questionnaire is given for about Rs 25 lakh (about $29,000). For that amount, they get a free place in a government college where they only have to pay about Rs 16,000 ($190) per year.”

“For the full five-year course, that still only costs about one lakh rupees ($1,191), so of course wealthy students would rather do that than pay for private medical school themselves.”

Earning a ‘merit’ seat

The consultant, who wished to remain anonymous but whose identity is known to BI, also said there is a great deal of respect that comes with “earning” a meritorious seat rather than paying for a private “management” seat.

“Unfortunately, there are few objective standards by which people as outsiders can judge the competence of their doctors, especially at a time when everyone in India with an MBBS board is sitting outside their clinic,” agrees Asish George, a doctor who passed the entrance exam in 2014.

“For those people, the fact that someone passes a very competitive entrance exam and gets in inspires more confidence than someone who paid for the entire exam themselves.”

According to the Journal, authorities in India have tried installing video cameras in exam halls and increasing their monitoring of social media to catch cheaters. But many are still finding ways to gain the upper hand illegally, at a high price.

The NTA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.