Goof-up in exam evaluation: School board meeting postponed, 8 new members need time to study agenda

Amid a controversy over the goof-up in the evaluation of marks of the Class XII English paper, a crucial meeting of the members of the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education has been postponed for two weeks. The meeting was earlier scheduled to be held tomorrow (May 31) but now it would be held on June 13, as per the latest communique sent to the board members. Secretary of the education board Major Vishal Sharma (retd) said that the meeting had been postponed because the members didn’t get enough time to go through the agenda and prepare themselves. The state government had recently nominated eight non-official members to the board who will be attending the meeting for the first time. These members needed more time to study the agenda. The new members include Palampur MLA Ashish Butail, who had earlier served as Chief Parliamentary Secretary for the School Education Department. Two other Congress MLAs Neeraj Nayyar (Chamba) and Chandra Shekhar (Nurpur) have also been nominated to the education board as members. Principal of Government College, Nurpur, Anil Thakur; principal of Roots School, Kotkhai (Shimla), Kriti Rohta; principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Bhattakufar; Kewal Ram, principal of Government Middle School, Portmore (Shimla); Rakhi Pandit and retired college principal Dr Ram Lal Sharma have also been nominated as members to the board. The main agenda of the meeting is to discuss and pass the annual report and the audit of the accounts of the last financial year, besides the annual plan for the current financial year. The board has to submit the annual report and the audit report to the state government immediately after the end of the financial year. The government then presents these in the Legislative Assembly. It’s already late by two months. The members are also likely to constitute the Finance Committee, Examination Committee and the Academic Committee of the board for its smooth functioning. Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the MLAs nominated to the board may also rake up the issue of the goof-up in the evaluation of the marks of the Class XII English paper. While evaluating the answer sheets of the Class XII English paper, the officials concerned of the education board used the wrong answer keys, resulting in the award of incorrect marks.

Himachal Tribune