An appeal to Mr Kapil Sibal to stop the blatant misuse of the word like “ National” and “Olympiad” by private bodies

National word should be used for the exam conducted by the government bodies. However these days observed that this word used by private bodies to meet their vested interest.

There are lots of private bodies such as Science Olympiad Foundation. Unified Council and even private coaching which conduct various talent search examinations and used restrictive words like national, Olympiad etc.Below please find the details :

S.No.	Organization Name	Exams Name
1	Science Olympiad Foundation	National Science Olympiad
		National Cyber Olympiad
		International Mathematics Olympiad
		International English Olympiad
2	Unified Council	National Science Talent Search Examination
		Unified Cyber Olympiad
3	Computer Literacy Foundation	International Informatics Olympiad
		International Olympiad of English Language
4	FIIT JEE	National Science Talent Search Examination

The general perception about these exams in public is that these are conducted or supported by government bodies which lead to the inflated participation in all these exams. Unfortunately all these exams are neither regulated by government nor supervised. The certain facts which I want to highlight about all these exams are as below-

• None of these exams is conducted for Hindi medium or regional language students which clearly reflect actual intention of all these organizations. The use of the words such as “Olympiad” and “National” gives the feeling that all the students across the nation irrespective of the background are eligible to appear in these exams. However, in reality these organizations target group is studying in English medium schools.
• These examinations are not conducted in professional environment which leaves lots of scope for manipulation. Examination papers are sent to the schools at least a week in advance and school conducts the examination as per their convenience of date and time without any supervision from conducting body. At time it has been observed that same paper has been conducted on different dates in schools. Thus the very basic purpose of identifying or rewarding the talent gets defeated. Many times the deserving students are not recognized which results into the stress an emotional burnout into students.
• Despite using the words “National” and “Olympiad” all these exams are not transparent in nature. None of these organizations give any information through Right to Information (RTI) Act. Access to copy of the answer sheet is also not allowed. These organizations don’t have grievance redresses mechanism in place.
• In the absence of regulatory measures these organizations are keeping the names as per their convenience and there by confusing the students, parents and teachers. For example Unified Council and FIIT JEE both organize the exam NSTSE.
• Students are charged heftily for participation in these exams, in order to motivate students to take part, teachers and principals are also given cash prizes and rewards. Because of the financial rewards schools don’t promote govt. examinations like NTSE (National Talent Search Examination) conducted by NCSERT or NSEJS (National Standard Examination in Junior Science) conducted by HBCSE which are more transparent and credit worthy.
  
  
• Typically a student spends close to Rs.1000 in a single academic session for appearing in these exams. Students also spend lots of money for buying the books separately for each exam.
• These examinations start right from grade 1, at one side you are removing the exam in order to make the learning more enjoyable. You will be surprised to know there are at least 25 examinations which a grade 2 student can appear which leave the school and parents confused. Your ministry has been advocating of coming with single entrance examination, however at other side a student is appearing in many talent search exams. We need to have some regulatory measures to stop this menace.

In view of the above facts I would like to urge you to put regulatory mechanism to stop exploitation of the students, parents and schools.MHRD should put some regulatory measures in this.