Telangana orders re-verification for failed students

Hyderabad, April 24 (IANS) Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday ordered free re-verification of answer sheets of all the intermediate students who failed in the examinations.

The decision came amid a row over the goof-ups by the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TIBE) in declaring results, which allegedly led to suicide of 10 students since last week and triggered protests by parents and opposition parties.

With two more students ending their lives and protests continuing on Wednesday, the Chief Minister reviewed the situation with senior officials.

In case of students who passed but prefer re-verification and re-counting, it would be 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 that 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 competing the process. The Chief Minister also instructed officials to evolve a strategy for smooth conduct of examinations and evaluation.

Expressing shock over suicides of 'few' students who failed in the intermediate examination, he said it was 'most unfortunate'. He appealed students not to resort to suicide as failing in intermediate examinations did not mean 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," it said.

KCR also asked officials to examine whether the responsibility of conducting examinations be entrusted to an autonomous body. "It has to be examined whether the responsibility of conducting examinations could 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.