Hyderabad: After a massive bungling in the results of the Intermediate Board examinations led to as many as 22 students ending their lives, the Telangana government has offered to provide free re-evaluation of answer sheets of all those who had failed. The large scale blunders in the Intermediate results have marred the image of the K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) government that came to power only four months ago.
The rage of parents and students against the errant Telangana State Board of Intermediate (TSBIE) is so intense that the board office at the busy Nampally road in the city has become a battleground between the students’ organisations and the police for the last 10 days. Students and youths tried to demonstrate in front of the residence of the Chief Minister and Education Minister G. Jagadishwar Reddy.
The government has suffered a jolt as 18 students, around half of them girls, committed suicide on the day the results of the first and second year Intermediate Board examinations were announced in Hyderabad on 18 April. Of around 9.30 lakh students who appeared for the examinations, close to 3.4 lakh had been declared failed, with a pass percentage of around 64, a dip by 3% from last year.
What shocked the students were the glaring blunders in the results that came along with mark-sheets on the board’s web portal. Several brilliant students were shown failed with zero or poor marks, while many of those who had appeared for all subjects were shown as absent. The initial response of the Board officials that there was nothing wrong with the results had prompted many students to end their lives.
As many as 18 deaths were reported on the first day of the results, while another four students committed suicide later this week. The students continued to end their lives in depression as debates continued over the authenticity of the results. The sudden suicides of Intermediate students had stunned not only people of Telangana, but also neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, from where a large number of students took this examination.
A three-member technical experts’ panel set up by the state government on 20 April found fault with M/s Globearena Solutions Private Limited that was entrusted with compilation of OMR sheets and tabulation of mark-sheets for the examinations. The firm’s incompetence and poor software is the major reason for the bungling in the results, sources from the Chief Minister’s Office said.
The panel, comprising Telangana State Technology Services Corporation managing director G.T. Venkateswara Rao, BITS, Hyderabad’s faculty, Prof Vasan and IIT Hyderabad faculty Prof Nishant, visited the board office and prima facie established that the goof-up in the results was purely a technical issue, but neglect was evident at all levels—evaluation of answer-sheets to compilation of marks.
Globearena, with around 18 years experience in the field of education technology, has been booked for cheating and malpractices by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Kakinada. In 2015, there was a similar case of answer-sheets bungling against Globearena and the case is still on. The firm has bagged a contract from Telangana’s State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) for results compilation four years ago.
- Ashok, TSBIE secretary, a senior IAS officer, refused to spell out the details of the contract. Sources in the board told this newspaper that its volume is around Rs 12 crore per year, in addition to extra fees for allied services. The selection of Globearena has not been done as per a valid tender system but through a purchase order on ad hoc basis, solely at the discretion of the officials.
Rattled by the marks bungling, Chief Minister KCR has ordered a high-level probe by Education Secretary B. Janardhan Reddy who in turned held a series of review meetings in the last few days with the board officials to fathom the level of irregularities in the examinations. “We are in the process of finding the source of malady and doing justice to the aggrieved students,” Reddy told this newspaper on Friday.
After a review meeting chaired by CM KCR on Wednesday, the government has announced that the answer-sheets of all the failed students would be re-evaluated free of cost. Initially, the TSBIE has offered to re-evaluate the papers at the usual fee of Rs 3,600 at the rate of Rs 600 per each of six subjects. However, the Chief Minister asked the officials to do it free as the board had failed in its duties.
The Telangana High Court, which heard a petition filed by Telangana Balala Hakkula Sangham (Child Rights Forum) on Tuesday, reprimanded the board for letting down lakhs of students due to its faulty examination system. The HC has asked the board to come up with a reply on how to resolve the situation by 29 April.
The court found that there were thousands of glaring errors in the Inter results. Mithali Jain, an Intermediate second year students from the city (Hall ticket No 1961211743) got 92 marks in English, 99 in Hindi, 95 in economics and 96 in commerce, but got just 8 marks in mathematics paper 1 and 33 in maths 2 and she is shown as failed. She is protesting at the board office for the last one week.
Another second year student Radhika from Jangoan (Hall ticket No 1942410915) appeared for all six papers, but her marks memo showed her as absent in one of them. Hence, she is failed but in the remaining five subjects, she scored 90 plus marks. Mohammad Nissaruddin (Hall ticket No 1960312923) from the city wrote all papers, but is shown as absent and failed.
Sairam Reddy, a second year student, scored 90 plus marks in all subjects in his first year, but failed in mathematics papers.
He is expecting to appear for IIT and other national engineering entrance tests, but is unable to digest the failed marks in his pet subject of mathematics. There are numerous such instances and students were found crying in front of the board as the Intermediate marks are crucial for many entrance tests.