VIJAYAWADA: On April 12, the day when the results of the second year Intermediate were out, 17-year-old Bachu Naga Navya from Anantapur received the shock of her life. Her marks in the Economics paper II were 19. The gritty girl didn't lose heart.
She went in for re-verification and came out with flying colours. She secured 91 marks, not 19. Obviously a bloomer on the part of the valuation team and officials of the Board of Intermediate. Happy after the correction, she says, the agony she went through over the last few weeks was mind-numbing.
Speaking to Express, Naga Navya, who studied Intermediate (MEC) at the Nalanda CA Academy in Anantapur, said, "I was shocked when I saw that I failed and secured only 19 marks in Economics, instead of 90 plus I had expected. I checked the result on various sites and typed and retyped my hall-ticket number to make sure that I did not make a mistake. But the result was the same. I couldn't digest it though my parents and college authorities assured me that there might have been a mistake and asked me to apply for re-verification. Now I am glad that I scored 91. My aggregate for the two years is 962/1,000."
Navya, who wants to be a chartered accountant, is now preparing for the Common Proficiency Test to be conducted ICAI on June 19. B Ram Kishore, her father, told TNIE that he had received an anonymous call from the Intermediate Board on April 21, admitting that there was an error in the result and his daughter's score was 91 not 19.
"My daughter is intelligent and has always been a topper. Every day after the exam she used to tell me that she would get 90 or 95 marks. But after the results, we were shocked and she was depressed. The board should be very careful as one error could prove disastrous for students," he added.
When contacted, B Udaya Lakshmi, Commissioner of Intermediate Board Education, refused comment, saying she was busy at the collectors' conference.
Instances of students committing suicide over failure in exams are reported every year after exam results. Pointng at this, SFI state president Noor Mohammad, pointed out, "Bloomers in mark-sheets are not new. Board officials are literally playing with the lives of students. They should give an explanation and strict action should be taken against the erring lecturers."