Wrongfully Marked Absent In HS Examination, Panic Strikes Among Students, “The matter is being attended,” Assures Education Minister

Assam Higher Secondary Education Council announced the results of the Class 12 examination yesterday. In the examination held from February 12 to March 13 across the state, 2,80,216 candidates appeared and the exam was held across 876 exam centres. In Barak Valley, 24,440 students sat for the exam and 80.89% of the students passed the exam. A startling failure of the council that has come to the limelight is the wrongful absent marking of many students in one subject. This led to many students failing in the examination.

This fault has developed traction only after some of the renowned schools of Silchar called this out. The real figure is still not known. 60 students from Gurucharan College, 36 from Ramanuj Gupta Senior Secondary School and 29 from Holy Cross Senior Secondary School have fallen victim to the callousness of AHSEC. They were marked absent on their General English paper. Many students have yet to report this error and they might be unaware of what must be done next.

Interestingly, so far all the students are from the Science stream and according to their claims they were present in all the papers. Dr Ranoj Pegu, the Education Minister of Assam told Barak Bulletin that, “the matter is being attended” by the council and he had also asked the council to correct the marksheets at the earliest.

Bibhash Deb, the Principal of Gurucharan College expressed his disappointment and said, “We have informed the council and they are checking the matter”. Rudra Gupta, the President of the Governing Body and Ramanuj Gupta Memorial Trust said, “It is a big setback for the students who are preparing for the Advanced of JEE. Imagine their mental situation at this stage. In our Ramanuj Gupta Senior Secondary School, we have many students who have been marked absent, if these students get 60 in English a paper they have been marked absent, they would have scored above distinction”.

On what steps the institution is taking for the students, Gupta added, “The institution has informed the council about the issue through proper channels. Moreover, a teacher travelled to Guwahati to be at the council in person with all the hard copies of the attendance sheet and all confirming these students were present and took the test.”

This number might not be limited to these 120 students and the real figure can be even more. In the correct scenario, the students are panicking as the provisional report card says, they have to reappear for the exam, which won’t be able to until next year, given that the mistake is not corrected. It remains to be seen how the council does justice to these students.