The gaffe committed in the High School Certificate (HSC) examination results by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), which created a lot of consternation and worries among the students and their guardians, may have been attributed to a “system error”, but the BSE authorities cannot wash their hands off so conveniently.
The machines are run at human commands. Without a wrong somewhere, which the BSE authorities are yet to confirm, the valuation of OMR sheets could not have gone faulty. While initially complaints were made with regard to faulty evaluation of the objective papers, especially the third language one (Sanskrit), that the students had appeared in the newly introduced OMR format, now there are allegations that the subjective paper evaluations too are not without errors.
What is unfortunate is the BSE authorities are not in a position to rule out any possibility of errors and are unabashedly ready to eat the humble pie. The fumbling of BSE chief Prof DP Nanda indicates he cannot for sure say that his officials have performed faultlessly.The HSC results have a lot of ramifications on the people of the State; those who have appeared, their parents and the common people at large are affected.The BSE may have introduced a new system of examination this year depending too much on technology, starting from examination format to evaluation and publication of results, but the fact remains that the whole lot of things carry a lot of meaning.
While good results make people go gaga and dream of big things, bad results create shock and anxiety and often lead a few to commit suicide. Hence, while publishing the results, the authorities have to maintain a great measure of caution and care since it is a sensitive affair.
The present case seems to give an impression that the BSE authorities have gone overconfident and published the results by sticking to the timeline they had announced earlier for the sake of taking credit. They have overlooked their mistakes at several levels by too much dependency on computers. The severe mistakes they committed have left them now as a laughing stock. After relooking and cross examining into the entire process, the percentage of pass-outs is on the rise.
Similarly, is rising up the number of pass-outs in the Grade-A and other categories. A student who had secured 15 in Sanskrit earlier is now found to be securing 51; another 8 earlier, now 48. This is all ridiculous.Nanda may have assured one and all of rectifying things at his own level soon for which the students won’t have to take any botheration or spend any money, but it is not a way of absolving one of the grave omission and commission.