HYDERABAD: Less than 24 hours after a three-member committee was set up to look into the alleged irregularities in the Intermediate results, it has submitted an interim report Monday. In its report, the committee has given a clean chit to the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) in the matter, while refuting all allegations of erroneous evaluations in the marks memo.
It has also pegged the number of complaints received thus far by the Board at around 4,000, which happens to be just a fraction of the number of complaints received in 2018, which was over 17,000.
While the committee was given three days to verify all the allegations against the Board before submitting a report, the swift release of the interim report is raising many eyebrows. Some say that this move is an indication of which way the final report would be leaning toward.
Why are students paying for infighting in TSBIE?
While giving a clean chit to the process followed at the spot valuation centres during correction of papers, the committee pointed out an ongoing conflict among the Board and the teachers union which is proving to be a cause of embarrassment for both Board and the government.Earlier, this had also been pointed out by the State Secretary for Education, Janardhan Reddy.
On the condition of anonymity, a lecturer at the government junior college, who was involved in the valuations said, “For the first time in 17 years we are hearing that teachers are getting back at the Board by fudging up students’ marks. This is such a baseless allegation. The government, in order to save its face, is making up such allegations against teachers, who are the soft targets,” he said and added that there are several incidents of lack of coordination within the TSBIE staff.He added that such allegations would do nothing but lower the morale of the teaching community.
What about accountability, who is held responsible?
At least 12 students killed themselves after seeing the ‘Fail’ grade on their report cards and over 21,000 others were affected by the goof-ups in the results. As many as 2,006 students failed despite scoring a total of 750-800 marks; another 11 ‘failed’ students secured a total of more 900 marks and 125 were in the 850-900 marks bracket. The subsequent clean chit to the TSBIE by the interim report has left many wondering who is accountable for the whole fiasco.
“Whether the reason was a conflict within the Board or between the Board and teachers, bottom line is that dejected by the poor marks they got, some students have killed themselves. If no one comes forward, it is for the government to hold persons accountable,” said G Satish, president, Telangana Private Junior Colleges.
Meanwhile, there has been an uproar from students bodies, political parties and other civil society members demanding the resignation of TSBIE secretary, ‘on moral grounds’.
Probe on TSBIE’s technical partners
Taking cognizance of a possibility of flaws in the functioning of the system used by ‘Globarena Technologies’, the State on Monday issued a GO forming a three-member committee to look into the matter. The committee will be headed by Venkateshwar, MD of the TS Technological Service, Prof A Vassan of BITS Hyderabad and Prof Nishanth Dongari of IIT Hyderabad. TSBIE has had to face criticism for giving a Rs 4 crore-contract to Globarena Technologies in 2018, a private player, instead of the regular partner, Centre for Good Governance. Teachers and college managements have alleged that Globarena Technologies were incompetent and lacked credentials for the task at hand
No lapses on our part: TSBIE secretary
TSBIE secretary A Ashok has reiterated that there were no lapses on their part in releasing the results. He said that the initial complaints received were attended to and rectified, free of charge and at the earliest. However, he turned down the demands for free re-counting and verification of papers and said that students will still have to avail these services at a cost. For recounting, they will have to shell out Rs 100 and Rs 600 for reverification. “We have been charging a fee every year for these services and this year will not be any different. But we will extend the date for recounting and verification,” he said