25 Students Committed Suicide In India After Their Exam Papers Were Graded Wrongly
Over 33% of the 970,000 students who took the exam were declared failed.
By Jia Vern Tham — 02 May 2019, 03:22 PM
25 students have committed suicide in Telangana, India over the last 12 days after being failed by the state's exam board
NDTV reported that over 33% of the 970,000 students, who recently took the Intermediate first year and second year exams (Year 11 and 12), were failed by the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE).
The results, which were announced on 18 April, were marred with discrepancies so high that it triggered a string of suicides by students.
A few of the errors made while grading papers were reportedly "extreme"
According to NDTV, the result of one student's exam paper showed 0 – when the score should have been a 99.
Another female student, who was told that she failed the Biology paper, set herself on fire at home on 27 April.
The Epoch Times reported that a 19-year-old student hanged herself in Telangana after being depressed over her results.
Parents have since blamed suicides of students on the BIE, who hired a company to develop software for processing admissions and results
The exam was conducted by Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd – a company which allegedly has no experience in handling exam results for a state board or university, reported Fox News.
"Globarena has no experience in handling such exams," one activist was quoted as saying by NDTV.
Meanwhile, Telangana BJP chief K. Lazman is on an indefinite hunger strike to build pressure for a judicial probe into the faulty results.
"We are demanding a judicial probe into this... This is not just mismanagement. This is a huge scam," Laxman said, according to NDTV.
"The company that was given the contract for end-to-end technical support was simply not qualified to handle to future of 970,000 children," he added.
Examiners, who activists claim were supposed to handle 30 exam sheets a day, were reportedly given 100 instead.
A free recounting and re-verification has since been offered to the students who failed
Khaleej Times reported Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao as announcing that a supplementary examination has also been delayed by a week.
He also appealed to students not to commit suicide over exam results as failing the Intermediate test does not mean it is the end of their lives.
According to Fox News, activists are also asking for INR2.5 million (approximately RM148,000) in compensation for the families of students who committed suicide over faulty exam results.
There has also been calls for immediate resignation of Education Minister G. Jagadeeshwar Reddy.