Recently several newspapers have written that the suicides of students were due to errors in the publication of results. This is uncalled for as there is no truth in this allegations. The media report has not gone into details before coming to the conclusion. The Board has done a comprehensive analysis of the scripts of students who have committed the suicide. Later, it was found that none of the suicides were linked to errors in publication of results.
The Board got all the scripts of suicide candidates and got it re-verified with the subject experts. Forming a committee was helpful to check for any errors or mistakes in the answer sheets. The Board found that there were no major errors which would change the marks of students from fail to pass.
Re-verification Analysis for Suicides
The re-verification committee constituted to re-verify the answer scripts of students, who committed/attempted suicide justifies further. A total of 53 answer scripts of failed students who committed/attempted suicide were re-verified by the selected regular lecturers of respective subjects.
It was observed that there was no remarkable change in the result of the students after re-verifying. Failed subjects, remained failed after re-verification too”. On analysis it was found that out of 25, 10 have failed in one subject, 12 students have failed in more than one subject, 3 despite passing the examination have committed suicide. In total 22 have committed suicide and 3 attempted for suicide.
In a peculiar case a student has committed suicide even after scoring around 85% and getting “A” grade. In one case a student committed suicide after writing third paper thinking that she would fail while in fact she had passed. So board feels that in depth analysis into these cases should be done by an expert committee. And steps will be taken based on the report to avoid future cases of suicides.
Print Media Blame Game
Many newspapers have also reported that due to error, thousands of students have been failed as per score card. None of the students have failed due to error as errors were rectified immediately after the declaration of the result. The failure is purely on the basis of students poor academic performance in the examination in few subjects.
This point needs to be clarified as there is no major deviation in pass percentage compared to previous years. In 2017 it was 61.34%, 2018 was 64.73% and in 2019 it is 62.29% . The Three men committee which also looked into the issue states that “No significant variation has been observed in the pass percentage of 2019 when compared with the last two years.
Further committee noted that there have been errors found in the results due to inadequate development, readiness, and testing of the application suite. However, its magnitude, scale and nature do not vitiate the results on the whole”
Telangana Board Regrets
The Board expressed deep regret over the suicides and acknowledges it is irreparable loss to the parents. However, it is clarified that suicides committed by the students have no relation to mistakes due to technical and result processing errors. This can be substantiated by the facts mentioned above.
The Board works for students and it has equal responsibility like parents have towards their children. And it is the responsibility of all of us to educate and counsel our students not to take extreme steps.
Since the parents are already in distress and in grief, these names and scripts are not made public. But for anyone who wishes to have access to these papers for academic purposes. And those wish to analyse the reason behind these deaths can write to Board requesting the copy of the scripts. It will then be provided as soon as possible.
Khalid M Raza
