Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao yesterday ordered free re-verification of answer sheets of all intermediate students who failed in the examinations.
The decision came amid a row over goof-up by the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TBIE) in declaring the results, which allegedly led to 10 students committing suicide in the past one week and triggered protests by students, parents and opposition parties.
With two more students ending their lives and protests continuing yesterday, the chief minister reviewed the situation with senior officials.
Students who passed but prefer re-verification and re-counting can get it done as per the prevailing norms and regulations, the chief minister said.
KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, asked officials to expedite the re-verification and re-counting process and complete it as early as possible. It should be followed by advanced supplementary examinations to prevent loss of the academic year, he added.
Education Secretary B Janardhan Reddy has been entrusted with the responsibility of completing the process. The chief minister also instructed officials to evolve a strategy for the smooth conduct of examinations and evaluation.
He expressing shock over the suicides of ‘a few’ students who failed in the intermediate examination, and said it was ‘most unfortunate’. He appealed to the students not to resort to suicide as failing in the examinations did not mean the end of life.
According to a statement from the chief minister’s office, of the 9.74 lakh students who appeared for the intermediate examinations, 3.28 lakh failed.
“Some students and their parents are of the opinion that during the process of addition of marks, mistakes took place resulting in less marks than expected and hence they failed,” the statement said.
KCR also asked officials to examine whether the responsibility of conducting the examinations be entrusted to an autonomous body. “The best practices in other states and other countries are to be studied for implementing in our state,” he said.
“The government faces problems every time intermediate examinations and EAMCET are conducted. The government, students and their parents face trouble every time. This needs to be avoided,” KCR said.
The two students who committed suicide yesterday were identified as Chakali Raju of Shakarampet village of the Medak district and Malothu Naveen of the Warangal.
Others include 17-year-old Dharma Ram, nephew of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh.
The opposition parties have claimed that 18 students have committed suicide and blamed the TBIE.
Education Minister Jagdish Reddy alleged that the opposition parties were trying to politicise the issue.
Activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) tried to lay siege to the chief minister’s residence. Police arrested dozens of protesters who were raising slogans against the government and demanding action against those responsible for the goof-up.
The Telangana High Court on Tuesday heard a petition filed by an NGO fighting for children’s rights, seeking free re-valuation of all answer sheets. It asked the government to inform it by next week about the time required for re-valuation of answer sheets of students who have failed.