School Education Minister Vaigai Chelvan on Friday told the State Assembly that the State government was considering conducting of re-examination to the SSLC students whose 221 answersheets for English Paper I sent from Sathyamangalam post office on April 1 which were lost in transit.
Replying to the issue raised by members of various parties, the minister said the postal department employee Soundar Rajan who lost the SSLC answer paper bundles near Gingee in Villupuram district had been suspended.
Regarding the suggestion of the opposition parties that in future, the School Education Department should make arrangements for sending the answersheets to the respective places on its own and make the Department officials responsible for the safe delivery, the Minister said the practice of sending answersheets via post had been in vogue for decades. He said in consultation with the CM, the mode of transporting the question papers and answersheets would be modernised.
In the case of answersheets found on railway tracks in Vriddhachalam, the bundles were registered with the Railway and sent. Two bundles of answersheets were found 300 metres away from the railway station. Of the two bundles, 63 answersheets of Tamil Paper II were completely damaged.
Already, the department had announced that the students involved in the 63 Tamil Paper II answersheets would be given the same marks these students had scored in Paper I. “Those who score less than the qualifying marks in the first paper would be given the minimum pass marks,” the minister added.
The minister also pointed out that the norms followed now were not new.
During the DMK regime, answersheets were burnt in a school at Vellore and the norms followed then, have been applied now also.
Referring to a wrong question in English Paper II due to printing mistake, the Minister said the printing of question papers were being done in a secret manner and the mistakes in them could be found only when they are opened for distribution.