Technical students demand revaluation

Rifat Mohidin

Srinagar, December 1

Hundreds of students pursuing technical courses in different polytechnics of the Kashmir valley protested against the technical board in the city today claiming faulty evaluation as most of the students had been declared to have failed in the examinations.

The students said the results of the second and third semesters were declared by the Technical Board of Education a few days ago, in which very few students had cleared the examinations, raising questions about the evaluation.

A few days ago, the board had announced the results of second and third semester examinations, in which only 3 per cent students were declared to have passed, said the protesters.

The students who had been toppers in previous examinations had now been put in the categoryof examination failures, raised questions about checking and evaluation, said the protesters.

The police detained scores of students to foil the protest march. The students raised slogans against the board and claimed that the board was jeopardising their career by faulty evaluation.

Earlier, students of Kite Polytechnic College, Rangreth, and other colleges assembled in the city centre and levelled similar allegations against the board as only 16 per cent of the students had cleared the examinations.

There should be rechecking and revaluation of answer sheets by the board on its own, said a group of protesting students.

The examination results should be declared afresh because it was not possible for so many students to fail, they claimed. The evaluators should be taken to task, said the group of protesting students.

Last month, the family of a student, Adnan Gilkar, who committed suicide after failing in the physics paper four months ago, protested in Srinagar as revaluation had shown the student to have not only passed the examination, but topped his class as well.

The incident had drawn attention to the poor evaluation by the Technical Board of Education. A government inquiry ordered by the Minister for Technical Education Imran Raza Ansari had recommended that the teacher who had evaluated the paper be declared ‘deadwood’ and be given compulsory retirement.

The students said the incident had forced them to raise their voice as they were facing injustice on the part of evaluators. They were doing the same thing again, said the protesting students.

They demanded an overhaul of the board and fixing of accountability on those who were assigned the task of checking answer sheets.

The protesters claimed that evaluators were not doing proper checking. Board officials and paper checkers had proved to be murderers who had forced Adnan to commit suicide, said the protesting polytechnic students.

They demanded that the board should be transparent in its procedure of checking and students should be provided the answer sheets. They said they could not let the board staff play with their careers.