Hyderabad: Even as a petition has been filed in Telangana High Court, students and parents continued to throng the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) office seeking justice for students declared failed in the recent board exams.
The results were announced on 18 April. Balala Hakkula Sangham, a city-based child rights NGO, hasĀ moved the Telangana High Court to look into the matter. The NGO demanded the government to conduct a detailed probe into the entire process and action againstĀ TSBIE officials for theĀ errors committed in the process.
The education board was responsible for the students committing suicides from 19 April and hence the government must provide ex-gratia to the family members of these children demanded the NGO.Ā 17 students including the nephew of Telugu Desam Party Rajya Sabha MP C M RameshĀ have reportedly committed suicide as they failed in the Intermediate examination, claimed student organisations.
The hearing of the matter has been posted to 29 April by the High Court. Following requests by students and their parents,Ā TSBIEĀ has extended the last date for fees submission for supplementary exams and applications towards re-verification, re-counting from 25 to 27 April.
Meanwhile, scores of members of student organisations and other outfits were taken into preventive custody, after police foiled their attempts to stage protest demonstrations near the office and Ministers quarters over the issue.
Police officials have been deployed near the Board of Intermediate Education office due to the protests. In the wake of the event, Telangana government on Monday set up a three-member panel to inquire into the handling of the process by Globarena Technologies. Globarena is a private IT firm roped in by it.
According to media reports the agitating parents and students alleged that they were unable to apply for re-verification of answer sheets online and also thatĀ the TSBIE website was not functioning.
The police have taken protesting members of All India Students’ Federation and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi ParishatĀ into preventive custody as they had raised slogans against the Telangana government and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and demanded resignation of Education Minister G Jagadeeshwar Reddy. The protesting organisations demanded the government to waiver off fee towards re-verification.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary B Janardhan Reddy told reporters there there was no need for parents and students to get agitated and they could go for recounting and re-verification. “Till yesterday around 9,000 applications were received,” he said adding scanned copies of answer sheets were being handed over to students seeking re-verification. Any errors detected during re-verification would be rectified and action taken against such evaluators and scrutinisers, he assured.
TheĀ Telangana Congress wrote to the Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, E S L Narasimhan in this regard. The partyĀ demanded action against Globarena Technologies. State congress working president and former MP Ponnam Prabhakar Goud alleged that suicides of students took place only due to the “deliberate, negligent actions of the private firm in handling the Intermediate Exams.
Telangana BJP President K Laxman wrote to Chief Secretary S K Joshi andĀ demanded a judicial probe, headed by a sitting High Court Judge, to fix the responsibility and punish the guilty over the issue.
The party also sought a complete one-time waiver of fee towards requests for recounting, revaluation and copies of the answer scripts, constitution of a special cell for grievances of students and redressal on a war-footing and introduction of comprehensive third party audit annually to analyse the quality of evaluation and take course correction.