HYDERABAD: Amidst allegations, clarifications and pointing of fingers, the three-member committee has started its enquiry into the Intermediate exam fiasco. Representatives from the Globarena Technologies has been called by the committee to depose before it on Tuesday.
While refusing to comment on the allegations levelled against the tech firm, its CEO, VSN Raju, said that he has a qualified team, who have had the experience of working with 26 universities, including a couple of projects with JNTU Kakinada.
Raju said: “The three-year contract with the Intermediate Board was actually thrust upon us. We did not even want to take it up. We also want to clarify that we have no political allegiance or have any connection with political leaders.” Globarena Technologies has been in news since 2015 -- albeit for the wrong reasons -- when it bagged the contract with JNTU-K for the evaluation of three lakh papers despite not possessing the requisite experience.
When in 2017 the contract for the end-to-end program -- from data collection to processing of the results -- of TSBIE was given to the tech firm, it did not go down well with stakeholders. Until then the data pertaining to admissions, NR generation, centre allotment, and others, were handled by the Centre for Good Governance (CGG), and the result processing was done by a private agency with experience spanning over a decade. Allegedly, the firm’s results in the pilot project did not match those of its predecessor. Yet, it was given the contract.
Two more suicides, toll reaches 17
An intermediate student allegedly committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train at Nekkonda railway station on Tuesday. The deceased was identified as Navin of Tedlawada village. Another student S Jyothi from Shabad mandal in Ranga Reddy district set herself ablze after she failed to her civics paper in the intermediate examination,
Don’t politicise the issue: Education minister
Addressing the media persons on Tuesday, the state education minister, G Jagadish Reddy, alleged that opposition parties have been using the issue around Intermediate results for political benefits. He further urged the students and their families, to not fall for the ‘provoking’ trap of politicians and have faith in the Board to solve their problems. He further urged all the students with doubts in their final Intermediate marks, to apply for re-valuation or recounting, or both