Students, parents and civic bodies are protesting in Telangana against the miscalculation of marks by the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education(TSIBE). The miscalculations in the marks of the students have caused twenty intermediate students to commit suicide. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Boards are already facing a crisis of credibility because of their failure in preventing the question papers from leaking.
On April 18, 2019, the Telangana Board released the results of the 10th standard students in which over three lakh students were declared “failed” out of 9.4 lakh students. The protests have intensified after one of the student’s marks were raised from zero to 99.
While the state government has applied for re-evaluation of the report, in a PIL by the Telangana Parents Association, the High Court has ordered TSIBE to re-evaluate the answer-sheets of the failed students. Taking note, The Telangana Education Board stated that the process would take at least two months and added that it would submit a reply after discussions.
The President of Telangana Parents Association, N Narayana said: “Technical glitches in the evaluation system led to brilliant students getting 5 or 10 marks in some subjects and hundreds were marked absent despite appearing for the exams. There were technical glitches in the software deployed by the Globarena Technologies. When the results were declared, the company admitted that there were glitches but said that they had been rectified. Now it appears the whole process was full of mistakes. Unfortunately, due to these mistakes, students who failed are taking their lives.”
The Globarena Private Limited technology firm has come under suspicion for the same because of its involvement in the admissions, pre-examination, and post-examination. With the suspicion being diverted to the firm, the board’s process of choosing the firm has also been questioned.
Madhusudan Reddy, secretary of the Telangana Junior Colleges Lecturers Association referred to a performance certificate (Dated 08-09-2014), which was issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru technological University-Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Globarena Technology to raise pertinent questions over the rating of the software firm and its capability to handle an assignment of such magnitude.
Former minister and a senior leader of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti T Harish Rao took to Twitter to express his views on the same. “To see so many young children committing suicide over failure in an examination has left my heart sheared. Failing in examination is not losing in life. Life once gone will not come back. Please don’t end your lives”, he tweeted.
While a number of angels are coming forward which hint at this fiasco being a planned incident of political-corruption, this also puts in perspective the kind of evaluation system that state boards or for that matter most boards in India follow. “It is humanly impossible to be accurate in assessing the performance of students under such condition,” says educationist Chukka Ramaiah, doubting the standards of the evaluators.