After close to 20 students killed themselves allegedly dejected over their poor academic performance in Telangana over the last two weeks, a three-member panel formed by the state government to probe lapses in the Intermediate results submitted its report on Thursday.
A brief was released to the media on the findings of the panel, but it remained vague and inconclusive on who was to be blamed for the fiasco. The brief suggested that both the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) and Globarena Technologies, whose services were hired by the board to conduct the examinations and process the results, might be at fault.
Many bright students who did well in the first year failed in the second year. Most of them were shocked as they were awarded zero, one, or two marks. Another issue that many students complained about, was that they were unable to apply for re-evaluation because the TSBIE website is not opening.
After the death of several students, the state government stepped in to act and formed a committee headed by Venkateswar Rao, Managing Director, Telangana State Technological Service, and also comprising A Vassan of BITS Hyderabad, and Nishanth Dongari of IIT Hyderabad. The panel has now submitted its report to B Janardhan Reddy, Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Telangana.
Stating that the execution of the evaluation process could have been better, the committee pointed out that there was no significant variation observed in the pass percentage of 2019 when compared with 2018.
“There have been some errors. However, its magnitude, scale and nature does not vitiate the results as a whole,” the panel claimed.
In 531 cases, practical exam marks were not displayed in Geography students’ memos, 496 students were marked as ‘Absent and pass’ instead of their marks being displayed in the memo. A few students were also marked ‘Absent or Fail’ when they attended the exam, the panel admitted.
The committee also suggested six points, including data analysis of the recently published results to identify major inconsistencies, followed by re-verification of answer scripts. The committee also said that the server of the TSBIE website continued to face issues and suggested that the issues be resolved at the earliest.
It also recommended a helpline to be set up for the students and parents who wanted to clarify their doubts, besides an online form on the TSBIE website for resolution of issues.
The committee also suggested that the reverification could be conducted by the same agency, but suggested that an independent agency monitor the entire process and conduct parallel processing of results if required.
A total of 9.74 lakh students appeared for the Intermediate examinations held in February-March, out of which as many 3.28 lakh failed to secure pass marks.
On Thursday, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao ordered free re-counting and re-verification of the answer sheets of all the students who failed in the examinations. He also appealed to the students not to resort to suicide, saying failing in Intermediate test was not the end of life.
IANS inputs