The Bihar government has decided to set up a five-member expert committee, under a serving or retired judge, to suggest ways for examination reforms and to address paper leaks.This comes barely a month after students’ protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi besides parts of Bihar and other states, which ended in the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister.The government has set a three-month deadline for the committee, from the date of its formation, to submit its report. The committee will take into account secondary school, university, and competitive examinations as well as entrance tests.The General Administration Department (GAD), which comes under Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, on Sunday issued a notification constituting an “Expert Committee on Examination Reforms” to “review the existing examination framework and recommend comprehensive reforms across state examination boards, commissions, universities, and recruitment agencies.”Elaborating on the terms of reference of the proposed expert committee, the notification said the panel will review the “institutional structure and basic infrastructure, defining roles for boards and district administration, and recommending a system for fixing accountability for failures at different stages of the examination system.” It will prescribe maximum time limits for every step: from advertisement to result publication to re-evaluation.End-to-end security auditAs for question paper and security audits, the committee will review question paper-setting, including multi-tier setting and moderation, and conduct end-to-end security audits covering “biometric authentication, CCTV surveillance, invigilator deployment, collection of answer books, transportation, secure storage, scanning/digitization, evaluation, and result processing.”It will set guidelines for a clear “chain of custody protocol” for question papers and answer books, alongside tamper-proof packaging, encrypted transmission, and geo-tagging/geo-fencing.Also Read | Amid student protests, Bihar CM hopes new portal will fix ‘every complaint’, and fastThe objective of the committee will be to “strengthen the reliability, integrity, and public trust of examinations conducted by the State and its examination bodies” and to “stop question-paper leaks, impersonation of examinees, cheating and mass copying, manipulation at examination centres, tampering with answer books, unauthorised access to examination data, manipulation in results, and examination malpractices.”‘Accountability at every stage’According to the GAD, the committee will also have to ensure examinations are conducted on time and results declared within a stipulated timeframe, maintaining complete transparency and accountability at every stage of the examination process. The expert committee also has to ensure the “appropriate use of digital technology, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cyber security tools while ensuring human supervision and data security,” it added.Also Read | Bihar Board expands free JEE, NEET coaching to 155 Model Schools; ‘Vidya Saathi’ app to connect students with teachersThe GAD notification further said the committee must ensure that examination reforms do not cause loss to students from rural, economically weaker, or socially deprived backgrounds, or those not very familiar with digital technology.The committee will examine and make recommendations for five categories of examinations in Bihar: Secondary/Higher Secondary Examinations, University Examinations, Professional and Technical Examinations, Entrance and Eligibility Examinations, and Recruitment and Competitive Examinations.