A Phone Rings at 10:40
You are centre superintendent at Government High School No. 2, supervising the Grade 9 annual examination. Today's paper is Islamic Studies: 312 candidates in 9 rooms, 18 invigilators, exam began at 10:00. At 10:40 the Room 4 invigilator brings a candidate to your office - a mobile phone rang inside the hall and was recovered from his trouser pocket. The candidate is 15 and says the phone is his cousin's, that he forgot it was in his pocket, and that he never used it. Board rules prohibit any electronic device in the hall and require a written report the same day. At the same moment roughly 60 parents are gathered outside the main gate, after a WhatsApp voice note claimed that tomorrow's Urdu paper has been leaked. Two men are demanding to meet you and the gate constable reports they are getting louder. The district education officer's phone is switched off. Two hours twenty minutes of examination time remain.
1. Task 1. Set out, in order, what you do in the next thirty minutes about the candidate and the phone, and give the reason for each step.
Read the worked answer
- Seize and seal the phone in an envelope with the candidate's name, roll number, room and the time, signed by you and the invigilator. Reason: the device is the evidence, and a phone that is handled or switched off by three people in a corridor is worthless as evidence.
- Record his statement in his own words, in writing, signed, with the time. Do not promise forgiveness or threaten expulsion. Reason: an unrecorded oral explanation becomes a different story by evening.
- Send him back to finish the paper. The rule bars the device, not the candidate's continued sitting; the penalty is for the board to decide, not for you at 10:45. Removing him mid-paper creates a second dispute, a parent at the gate, and possibly a petition.
- Brief the other eight rooms quietly to check for devices. Reason: if one phone came in, the route that brought it is still open.
- Log every time. A board reading this in three weeks will ask what happened at 10:40, 10:52 and 11:05, and the log answers before you are asked.
All five steps take about fifteen minutes and none of them requires leaving the building.
2. Task 2. How do you handle the crowd at the gate without stopping the examination? Explain the reasoning behind each step, including what you deliberately do not do.
Read the worked answer
I do not go to the gate myself. The superintendent appearing at the gate is precisely what a crowd is waiting for, and it removes the one person who can authorise anything inside.
- Gate constable closes the gate and notes the time. The examination hall must not be reachable from the road.
- One senior invigilator, not the superintendent, tells the two spokesmen that a written complaint will be received at the office window at 13:00, and gives them a name and a time. A crowd with an appointment usually waits; a crowd with a demand usually pushes.
- Offer one verifiable fact - the sealed packet number of today's paper and the time it was opened in front of candidates. Rumour yields to specifics, not to denials, and the truth here happens to be on your side.
- Keep trying the deputy DEO on the landline while the mobile is off. The duty officer at the district office is the correct escalation and does not require you to leave the centre.
- If the gate line is crossed or the road blocked, the constable calls the police control room. Staff are not used as a barrier under any circumstances.
Throughout, the examination runs. No announcement is made in the halls.
3. Task 3. What goes into the same-day written report, and what must stay out of it?
Read the worked answer
Include: centre and room; candidate's name, roll number and time of the incident; that a phone rang, where it was found, and the time it was seized; the sealing, the envelope marking, and the invigilator as witness; the candidate's statement, attributed and dated; that he completed the paper; the crowd at the gate with approximate numbers and times; the message given to the spokesmen; the constable's instructions; the attempts to reach the district education officer, with times.
Exclude: any opinion on whether he cheated - that is the board's finding; the cousin's identity presented as established; the rumour's content presented as fact; any assurance about the security of tomorrow's Urdu paper that you have not personally verified; and any recommendation on penalty.
The test to apply: a board member should be able to reach the conclusion without you in the room, and should not be able to tell what you wanted the conclusion to be. One incident, one page, times on every line.