Slogans not our cup of T, warns BIE

The Board of Intermediate Education has warned students that they would be debarred and their results would be withheld if they penned slogans such as “Jai Telangana”, “Jai Samaikyandhra”, or “Jai Andhra” on the intermediate answer scripts.

Students booked under malpractice can be debarred from appearing for Inter exams from one year to eight years.

“Writing anything other than answers amounts to communicating with the examiners directly or indirectly which is a punishable offence,” said the BIE secretary, Mr G. Balaramaiah. “Exams are not the means to express demands or wishes.”

The board has come out with this stern warning in the context of emotions running high among students over the bifurcation of the state.

“Students should focus on exams and should not participate in agitation,” said Mr Balaramaiah. “Their elders will take care of bifurcation issues. My appeal to students is focus on their future.” Answer scripts with such political graffiti would be referred to the malpractice review committee that will take a final call on the action to be initiated. The committee will examine such scripts to ascertain whether students were awarded more or less marks by evaluators. Action will be taken against evaluators if any regional partiality is discerned. Mr Balaramaiah said the board used the bar-coding method to keep the identity of the student confidential.

After T, Inter exams to face more trouble

Intermediate public exams scheduled to begin on March 10 are headed for fresh trouble with some private junior colleges threatening to close down their institutions during the examination period unless their demand for an increase in tuition fees is granted.
As if this is not enough, thousands of lecturers who were engaged for exam duties and spot valuation, are demanding that their pay be revised and demonstrated in front of all the regional inspection offices of the Inter Board, across the state on Thursday.
The exams, which were originally scheduled to begin on March 3, were postponed to March 10 due to the Telangana agitation.
“The tuition fee prescribed by the Board of Intermediate Education for private colleges is Rs 2,000 per annum, but prominent colleges are charging lakhs of rupees for Intermediate courses and the Board has failed to take action against them.
The small colleges are the worst affected as their managements are not in a position to run the colleges for an annual fee of just Rs 2,000,” said Mr B. Prasad, president, AP Un-aided Private Junior Colleges’ Management Association.
Adding that the fee prescribed by the government for private schools was Rs 12,000 per annum, he questioned the rationality behind fixing just Rs 2,000 for the Intermediate courses.
“The government should address our problem immediately. If not, we will not cooperate with the Inter Board for conducting the exams,” Mr Prasad said.
Meanwhile, various lecturers’ associations belonging to government, aided and private junior colleges demonstrated on Thursday demanding an increase in remuneration for exam duties and spot valuation.
Though the associations said they will not obstruct the exams in the interests of the students, they will be forced to halt the spot valuation work if the government refuses to hike the payment.