Page 50 - 15MAY2019E

Student suicides force Telangana

govt to re-verify answer sheets

Telangana Board of on April 28 that it has imposed a fine of the examination.
5,000 against Uma Devi, a teacher of
This has become the highest num-
Intermediate, which is at the a private school who evaluated Telugu ber of suicides recorded post-Interme-
centre of a row over goof- paper of Navya, a 12th standard student diate results in the state over the last
up in declaring results of its but instead of giving ‘99’ marks gave her four years. In 2018, six student suicides
were reported after the results were
‘0’ marks. Uma Devi has also been sacked
examination, suspended a by her school management. announced. While there were no such
BIE also suspended Vijay Kumar, a
teacher and imposed fine on teacher of a tribal welfare school, who incidents from 2015 to 2016.
These suicides have triggered protests
another for giving a student ‘0’ had served as scrutiniser but failed to from parents and students, who blame
marks instead of ‘99’, reports notice the blunder. The goof-up by the that faulty evaluation system led to the
tehelka bureau Board has triggered a spate of suicide failure of 3.28 lakh students out of 9.74
by students and protests by parents, stu- lakh students who appeared in the inter-
uicide by more than 20 stu- dent bodies and opposition parties. They mediate examination in March this year.
dents and massive protests are demanding action against the high- In a related development, Telangana
forced the Telangana gov- er-ups in the Board and the Globarena BJP Chief K Laxman sat on an indefinite
ernment to announce free Technologies, an IT company, which was fast, demanding a judicial probe into
S re-verification of answer allegedly found guilty of the massive the alleged goof up in the declaration of
sheets of over 3 lakh students, who were bungling. results of intermediate examinations.
declared failed in the examination con- Earlier, Chief Minister K Chan- “BJP feels the entire process has to be
ducted by the state’s Board of Intermedi- drasekhar Rao had made an emotional corrected. So far, 23 students have com-
ate Education (BIE). appeal to the students to not take an ex- mitted suicide. BJP wants to take it to
Telangana Board of Intermediate, treme step and respect the precious life, the logical conclusion and hence state
which is at the centre of a row over goof- two more students reportedly commit- BJP president K Laxman will observe an
up in declaring results of Intermediate ted suicide due to failure in their exams, indefinite fast from Monday at the par-
examination, suspended a teacher and taking the toll to 21, according to a report. ty office here, demanding a probe by a
imposed fine on another for giving a stu- While a boy jumped in front of the sitting High Court judge to fix respon-
dent ‘0’ marks instead of ‘99’ on April 28. train and ended his life in Warangal, sibility,” BJP national general secretary
A day after three-member committee another student — a girl from Maha- P Muralidhar Rao said on April 28.
submitted its report to the government, bubnagar burnt herself to death in the On the three-member committee
Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) past 24 hours. According to the police of technical experts, appointed by the
began action against those found guilty and the parents, both the students were Telangana government following the
of dereliction of duty. BIE announced depressed after not performing well in furore overIntermediate examination

Tehelka / 15 may 2019 50 www.Tehelka.com