HYDERABAD: A day after agitated students and their indignant parents staged a protest at the office of the Board of Intermediate Education here, the state government on Sunday began fire-fighting by forming a three-member committee to examine the students’ allegations and submit a report in three days.
Even as the government and the Board grappled with the allegations, news trickled in that the number of students who ended their lives on Saturday after receiving the results was not 10 but 12.
Among the issues students raised allegations over were fudging of results, being marked absent though they wrote the exam, non-addition of practical marks, and first-year toppers scoring single-digit marks in the second year.
The three-member committee appointed to go through these allegations will be headed by Telangana State Technology Services managing director G T Venkateswara Rao, and comprise Prof Vasan of BITS Hyderabad and Prof Nishant of IIT-Hyderabad.
Prof Vasan is an IT expert and Prof Nishant has expertise in conducting examinations. The decision to form the panel was taken at a high-level review meeting conducted by Education Minister G Jagadish Reddy and Education Principal Secretary B Janardhan Reddy.
Inter students need not worry, says Jagdish Reddy
The high-level review meeting conducted by Education Minister G Jagadish Reddy and Education Principal Secretary B Janardhan Reddy was understood to have been held on the instructions of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who was upset about the allegations raised against the Board of Intermediate Education.
Jagadish Reddy after the review said: “There is no need for either the students or the parents to worry. If the students feel that they had obtained less marks than their expectations, they can apply for recounting or re-verification. We will set right if anything went wrong. We will to allow even one student to suffer.”
The Minister said that the goof-up in results took place because of internal politics in the Board of Intermediate Education.
A section of officers allegedly tried to settle scores with another group, resulting in the mess. According to sources, the committee will also probe this angle and recommend action to settle the differences, they had damaged the reputation of the Board. Meanwhile, the Board of Intermediate Education denied all the allegations.of the parents.