BENGALURU: Former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday slammed the state government for risking the lives of teachers by crowding them together in just 43 centres for the evaluation of II PUC answer scripts in 30 subjects.
The government had neglected to allocate district-wise evaluation centres despite repeated requests from the teaching community and academicians. "The evaluators have no choice but to travel together, use fewer toilets, eat at the same canteen and use the same computer for uploading data. They will invariably come in contact with each other multiple times. In such a situation, no amount of precaution will come to their rescue," he said.
The number of asymptomatic cases is on the rise, and the government’s protocol to test lecturers only if they developed symptoms was inadequate, Kumaraswamy said. "Even if a single evaluator is infected, how will you quarantine about 500-800 lecturers?" he said.
Even if the government managed to quarantine all lecturers in such a scenario, the quarantine period would stall the evaluation by at least two weeks. He questioned the government’s haste in completing the evaluation when the results could not be announced before the English exam is held on June 18.