The issue of Punjab School Education Board’s (PSEB) “high-priced” golden chance has reached the Chief Minister’s office (CMO).
Finding fault with the PSEB’s decision to give ‘golden’ chance to the students, who have failed in the Class X or XII board examinations in the past 15 years, to reappear in the tests by paying exam fee of whopping Rs 15,000, a senior official of the CMO has decided to raise the matter with the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
The official, who did not wish to be named, told The Pioneer that the decision to fix such high charges for reappear examination is wrong, and using Guru Nanak Dev’s name for the same is disrespect to the Sikhs’ first master.
“PSEB’s decision to offer the golden chance to its students to reappear or improve their result is fine, but then using Guru Nanak Dev ji’s name and fixing such a high amount as examination fee is condemnable,” said the official.
The official pointed that earlier the exam fee has to be Rs 3000 or Rs 5000. “To mark the 550th birth anniversary, it would have been right if the PSEB would have offered more by taking less. It is like robbing people in the name of Guru,” added the official.
Notably, the PSEB, to mark the 550th birth anniversary of the founder of Sikhism, has decided to give a “golden” chance to the students, who got reappear or compartment in their exams after March 2004 onwards, to reappear in the tests. For the same, it has fixed Rs 15,000 as an exam fee.
The move has also been condemned by the Punjab Democratic Teachers’ Front alleging that the Board was fund-starved and trying to raise money from the people to run its functions.
Front’s secretary general Devinder Punia said that the Board was charging five-time more than what it used to charge for giving special chance earlier to students. “How can a poor student afford to pay Rs 15,000? Most of the students in government schools either belong to lower-middle class or are economically backward. Moreover, the number of such students who got reappear or compartment would be in thousands,” he added.
State’s principal opposition party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also dubbed the exorbitant fee fixed for the exam as “an open loot by the government”.
AAP MLA from Kotkapura Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that the PSEB’s decision amounted to ‘selling’ education in the name of religion, while demanding that the “golden chance be offered to the students for free”.