Intermediate board secretary admits ‘mistake’

Staff responsible for blunders in valuation of papers being ‘punished’, says official

Students unions and parents staging protest at Board of Intermediate Education in Hyderabad on Monday.

Amidst growing resentment against the goof up in the Intermediate results announced by the Board of Intermediate Education on Thursday, its secretary A. Ashok on Monday admitted that ‘major’ errors had crept in the valuation of papers.

He clarified that not even a single answer script has been misplaced and they were safely stored in the 12 camps across the State under round-the-clock police surveillance. “There were some reports that hundreds of answer scripts were missing. I request the parents not to believe such rumours, as papers are safe and will be shown to the students very soon,” he said while addressing the media outside his office.

Admitting that mistakes in ‘bubbling’ the OMR sheets on the answer scripts were committed by the examiners at various centres, Mr. Ashok said that penalty will be imposed on the erring staff along with issue of charge memo.

The results showed that 2006 students ended up in the failed category despite their marks being between 750 and 800. Among these, 11 students were found to have failed although their total marks were more than 900 while 125 more were in the 850-900 marks category.

Candidate attendance

Mr. Ashok said that there was some confusion on attendance of candidates due to change in the examination centres and added that this led to mentioning ‘Absent and Fail’ and ‘Absent and Pass’ in some of the marks memos.

“One should not blame the Board as we are maintaining transparency and students are requested to apply for recounting and reverification,” he said.

Explaining the case of Gajji Navya, a student from Jannaram mandal in Mancherial district, who got zero marks in second year Telugu paper, Mr. Ashok said that it is a clear case of ‘negligence’ by examiner and scrutiniser. “She scored 99 marks in Telugu. Instead of bubbling ‘9-9’ in the marks column on OMR sheet, the examiner has bubbled ‘0-0’, as a result, she was awarded zero marks. We have issued memo to the examiner and scrutiniser,” he said, explaining the procedure of bubbling on OMR sheets to the media.

“We will rectify the mistakes and ensure justice to the genuine students,” he said.