Hyderabad: Rs 15 crore will be spent on re-evaluating papers

Hyderabad: The cost of evaluating the answer papers of 3.75 lakh students who were declared failed will cost the Board of Intermediate Education is Rs 15 crore, at the rate of Rs 40 per paper. The cost of evaluating the answer sheets of all the nine lakh plus students who took the exam will be `17 crore, as the cost will stand at Rs 18 to Rs 20 per paper.

The cost is bound to escalate further as evaulators will have to be called back, given a designated centre, the papers checked again and the marks tallied. The marks are to be uploaded by the officials and again re-verified to prevent a repeat of the situation.

The arrangements that were in place for correcting and checking the answer sheets will have to be put in place again.

The availability of senior teachers is being taken into account to ensure that the re-verification and re-evaluation are done properly without any mistakes.

With the summer vacation going on, some senior teachers have left the city.

The BIE is looking for those who are available to start the work as soon as possible.

TS Government Junior Lecturers Association president Madhusudhan Reddy said, “The set-up has to be the same as it was for the original paper correction. The first task is to remove the bundle of failed students papers and that will be a time-consuming task.”

With the government pressure on the department and a hue and cry outside the office every day, the gates of the BIE have been locked and only officials are being allowed inside.

A flex banner outside the gates is directing students who have passed and want to apply for re-verification to approach the designated centres.

Meanwhile, for the sixth consecutive day on Thursday, vociferous protests against the bungling of the intermediate examination results were witnessed in different parts of Telangana.

Following the call from the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), the District Congress Committees held protests before the various district collectorates across the state.

While participating in a protest at the Suryapet district collectorate, the TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy criticised the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for his insensitivity towards the students who were caught in the chaos for no fault of theirs. He further said that the Chief Minister owes an apology to the students for the catastrophe.

Several senior Congress leaders, including Ponnala Lakshmaiah, V. Hanumantha Rao, and M. Kodanda Reddy, who staged a dharna in front of the Hyderabad district collectorate, were taken into custody.

Mild tension prevailed at the Ranga Reddy district collectorate when the police prevented the Congress workers, led by Malreddy Ranga Reddy, from entering the collectorate to meet the collector. The Congress workers were taken into custody and later shifted to Musheerabad police station.

The police foiled the endeavour of Jana Sena workers as they attempted to stage a protest before the Chief Minister’s camp office in Pragathi Bhavan. Additionally, the police arrested the activists of the All India Democratic Women’s Association when they arrived at the Intermediate Board to stage a protest against the fiasco.   

Report on errors in exam evaluation comes out today

The report by the three-member committee on what went wrong in the evaluation of the answer sheets in the intermediate exams that has resulted in many students failing will be released on Friday morning.

Officials said that the report has been prepared after speaking to all the stakeholders concerned, such as the tendering agencies, officials of the Intermediate Board, and lecturers. Written questionnaires were also sent to them.

A senior member of the board said that, “The crux of the report was to understand what went wrong and the investigation was in the form of questions to different stakeholders. As per the inputs we detailed what went wrong in the report which will be released on Friday morning.”

Problems in the Intermediate Board came to the fore in October 2019, and by December 2019 senior officials of TSBIE had developed major differences, especially in the manner in the examination process. Officers of TSBIE stated that they were told by experts  that the system they were following was ‘outdated’ and the new system ‘to be developed’ would help them process the exam results in an entirely different manner.

A senior TSBIE official explained, “The assurance given at that time by Globarena and even by one group of senior officials of the board was doubtful and the results have shown the picture that we feared the most. We will wait and see whether our inputs have been incorporated in the report.”