In a very unfortunate development, students committed suicide a week after there were discrepancies in the intermediate exam results announced by the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (BOIE) on 18 April. Students who had scored fairly well in the first year exams failed to even get passing marks in various subjects as per the results published by the state board authorities. The issue went unnoticed until cases of suicide increased dramatically.
Parents have blamed the board and said that bright students fail to secure good marks in the final exams while they did extremely well in the first year exams. In the last 24 hrs, about three students have taken their lives which increases the toll to 19 lives in the span of just a week. Telangana had registered eight suicides in 2018. In the year 2017, both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana witnessed more than 50 suicides by students in a span of two months
Rajani, mother of Class 12 students complains, “My daughter scored 85 percent in all the subjects in the second year, but failed in mathematics”. Student leaders have also taken up this issue. One of the leaders said, “A student identified as Naveena, who topped in her first-year exam, failed in Telugu in the final year. After re-verification, she got 93 per cent in the particular subject,”.
The issue went unreported until the death tolls saw a great rise in just a week. According to the parents what has caused the tragedy was the failure on the part of a software firm. Globarena Technologies Private Limited was engaged by the intermediate board in September 2017 for the development of software to process admissions, pre examination, post-examination results, including OMR scanning. The opposition party has alleged the ruling government of not taking any action against the firm as it enjoys a clout with the ruling party TRS.
19 Telangana students commit suicide in a week after 'goof-ups' in intermediate exam results; parents blame software firm. Did u hear in outrage from the Lutyens gang against KCR & co? https://t.co/yYEM6ZPxyq
— prafulla ketkar 🇮🇳 (@prafullaketkar) April 26, 2019
The clout enjoyed by the firm is with the working president of TRS and Chief Minister KCR’s son KT Rama Rao. However, the former TRS MLC Pathura Sudhankar has said that the allegation about TRS links with the software firm is baseless. He said that the tender was secured by company on the basis of the low bid that the company proposed. Students backed by Opposition parties, youth, women and rights groups resorted to forcing themselves into Pragati Bhavan, the official residence of the chief minister, and the office of the Board of Intermediate Education, and have courted arrests in the last few days.
While the Education Minister of Telangana Jagadeeshwar Reddy criticized the opposition for gaining political mileage from the sensitive issue, parents and students have strongly asked the government to probe in the matter. It shows that TRS led government does not have credible and reliable members in its cabinet to handle important portfolios. The incidence has put young lives on stake. Around 10 lakh students took the Class 12 exam in February 2018, and nearly 3.5 lakh failed, making it a gigantic task for the board to conduct supplementary exams for such a large number of students.
The time of various national level entrances like National Eligibility cum Entrance test (NEET), Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and other national level screening tests are running out. The government however does not seem to be bothered as it is passive in taking any step to investigate in the matter.
