HYDERABAD: The Intermediate exam fiasco continues to have a cascading effect on students and their future. While the bungling of marks by the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) had allegedly led to the suicides of a number of students across the State, the subsequent delay in processing the results of those contentious answer papers had resulted in more confusion.
Now, adding to students’ woes is the delay in announcing the results of the Intermediate supplementary exams. In fact, this latest laxity by the Board has left the future of many a student — especially of those who excelled in JEE Advanced — hanging in the balance.
These students now fear that they may lose their dream IIT seats, which they deservedly secured after a lot of hard work. For instance, Ajmeera Sai Kumar, who secured the 162nd rank in the JEE Advanced, was told by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) during Sunday’s counselling that his seat was cancelled since he could not produce his Intermediate marksheet.
Ajmeera Sai Kumar, who was awarded 11 marks in physics, is awaiting the supplementary results. His father Ajmeera Ravi, who is a government school teacher, said: “Based on his score, my son had been allotted the Mechanical Engineering programme at IIT Madras. But since we haven’t got the supplementary results till now, we were told that they can’t give the seat till we produce the Inter memo. We are hoping the results are announced soon so we can take the memo and get the seat.”
IIT aspirants given ‘seat cancellation letters’
Dasari Dinesh Raj, another IIT aspirant, is pinning his hopes on the Intermediate Board to release the results at the earliest or he will have to forgo his seat at IIT Kharagpur. At the counselling, he too was given the “seat cancellation letter” for his inability to produce the Intermediate marks memo and not “satisfy the minimum eligibility criteria for JEE (Advanced)”.His father Dasari Kumara Swamy said that the past two weeks have been very difficult for the whole family.
“All efforts and sacrifices of my son for the last two years will go in vain if the results are not announced in time,” he said.Dinesh was a student of Chaitanya Junior college where, according to Kumara Swamy, the entire Intermediate syllabus was completed in two months and the rest of the year spent on coaching them to crack the JEE exams.
“It is difficult for the child to cover such vast syllabus in two months. And his failing in Intermediate would not have mattered if the supplementary results were announced before the JoSSA began counselling,” he said.Sai, an ST candidate, and Dinesh, an SC, are just two of the dozens of students who were handed out the ‘seat cancellation letter’ at the IIT-H counselling centre. Teachers from Intermediate colleges allege that there are dozens of such students who have lost a chance to study in IITs, NITs and in Delhi University.
Re-counselling on July 15
A government school teacher from Khammam, who was present at the counselling centre, said that students who are still awaiting their supplementary results but got a seat through JEE Advanced were told that they can reappear for counselling before July 15 with the marks memo to get the seat.
Speaking to Express on condition of anonymity, he said: “What is more disconcerting was that along with assurance, the JoSSA authorities also handed out the ‘seat cancellation letters’ to these students. I met around 15 to 20 such students on the counselling day.”
Teachers have called the verbal assurance of the JoSSA empty promise to get the students off their back for the time being. “These students have already lost their chance to make it to the IITs, NIITs or even to colleges under Delhi University because of the goof-up by the Intermediate Board. The least that they can do at this juncture is to talk to the authorities of other agencies and buy some time for the students so that they don’t lose their seats,” said another government school teacher from Hyderabad. The Intermediate Board secretary, A Ashok, was unavailable for comment despite repeated calls.
Seats cancelled
A number of students have got “seat cancellation letters” from colleges as they haven’t been able to produce their Intermediate marks memo