HS chief steers clear of marks row

KOLKATA: The Madhyamik dirt’ has unnecessarily stained the reputation of the higher secondary council - so claims Jyotirmoy Mukhopadhyay.
The president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education was an angry man, on Wednesday, what with the council’s performance being clubbed with the beleaguered Madhyamik board.
The secondary board was dragged into a marks scandal after the publication of review and scrutiny results and eventually cost the job of its president Haraprasad Samaddar.
“There’s nothing wrong in the Council and our scrutiny results have not yet been published. So why are we being dragged in to the controversy?� Mukhopadhyay said.
However, the higher secondary council’s record is not completely spotless. Immediately after the publication of results, more than 100 dissatisfied students challenged their marks in court.
Only two students had their numbers changed, but the alteration has been rather drastic. In one case, a student’s marks were changed from 0 to 46 and another from 6 to 47. “These were careless errors made by tabulators while copying their marks from answer scripts to the computer and there have been no errors of assessment. If they had applied for scrutiny to the Council instead of going to the court, their problems would have been sorted out,� Mukhopadhyay said.
Unlike the Board, failed candidates at the higher secondary level are not allowed to apply for a review of their answer scripts. The Council does not expect large scale problems after its scrutiny results are published after the pujas.
Commenting on Madhamik board chief Haraprasad Samaddar’s resignation, Mukhopadhyay agreed that the hurried publication of Madhyamik results, within a record 41 days, might have caused problems.
But shouldn’t the state school education minister to be blamed also?
“Both Board and the Council are autonomous bodies and we work independent of the state government. The minister does not involve himself with the day to day affairs of either. He gives his advice only when asked.Why should he be held responsible for some laxity within the Board?� asked Mukhopadhyay.