In spite of opposition from the teaching community and private educational institutions, the State government conducted the annual examinations for the students of class I to IX from Wednesday onwards.
The examinations were marred with controversies on the first day itself.
The examinations are being conducted in two sessions, including the morning session for the schools which do not have SSC centres and in the afternoon session for the schools which conducted SSC examinations in the morning hours.
In order to avoid a repeat of question papers in the morning and afternoon sessions, the district educational authorities prepared separate question papers for both sessions. Ironically, in a majority of the centres, the authorities provided inadequate question papers forcing the teachers to take out photocopies of the papers and distribute the same by charging the amount from students.
According to a headmaster, the Education Department authorities distributed only one Telugu question paper for class VI in a rural school, while the class has strength of 80 students. He said that the teachers forced the students to pay for the photocopies of the question papers.
Telangana Rashtra Teachers’ Federation district president M. Prathap Reddy said that the conduct of annual examinations was untimely and causing hardship to students. Though the authorities instructed us to conduct classes till April 23, the students would not attend the schools after April 11 after the exams would conclude, he said.
“We cannot conduct the classes for the next academic year also without providing textbooks to the students,” he said.
He also said that textbooks were made available at the schools in April second week till the last academic year. But, this time, there was no mention of textbooks.