KOZHIKODE: A day after the SSLC exam answer sheets of students of Govt Higher Secondary School, Kayanna, were found lying by roadside, the district education authorities have launched a detailed probe into the incident. As per the directive of Deputy Director of Education E K Suresh Kumar (DDE), Thamarassery District Education Officer (DEO) Murali N conducted a preliminary inquiry into the matter on Thursday and removed the authorities concerned from exam duties.
“The incident is a clear case of negligence on the part of school office assistant Siby V K, who was carrying the answer sheets to the post office. Hence, we have suspended him from exam duties until further notice,” said Murali.
“We have also removed the Chief Superintendent and Deputy Chief Superintendent from examination duties. The next level of investigation will be carried out in the coming days,” he said. A total of 55 students had appeared for the SSLC Part 1 language exam (Malayalam, Sanksrit and Arabic) on Wednesday. After the exam got over at 3.30 pm, the office assistant carried the answer sheet bundles on his motorbike to the nearby post office for dispatching them to Thiruvananthapuram. The papers were later spotted along the road at Kuttivayal in Perambra by local residents who informed the school authorities.
Though the office assistant said the answer sheets fell off his two-wheeler as he fainted on the road due to nausea, the residents who recovered the answer sheets dismissed his claims.
“If it’s a two-and-half-hour exam held in noon, we normally instruct schools in rural areas to keep the answer sheets safely at the centre itself and post it the next morning. We had earlier given an instruction there must be two staff to carry the answer sheets to the post office,” said Murali.
He said the authorities visited the school and ensured the exam on Thursday took place smoothly. The DDE said he has requested the Education Department authorities to ask all schools to transport answer sheets in four-wheelers to ensure similar incidents do not take place in future. Though Express contacted the authorities of GHSS Kayanna for a response, they refused to comment on the issue.