SCERT grace marks: Panel asked to intervene before January 30

CHANDIGARH: Failing to receive any reply from the Centre on the issue of State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) giving grace marks, a candidate of NTSE has now written to CCPCR to intervene and resolve the issue.
The SCERT had put five wrong questions in the question paper and then gave 5 extra marks in the prestigious National Talent Search Examination's (NTSE) Stage I. The state-level exam was conducted on November 5, 2017 and the answer keys were uploaded on January 4 by the SCERT on its website. Earlier it was reported that the SCERT had made up for its mistake by giving extra marks to all the students for wrong questions in the paper.

However, this did not go well with the parents and they wrote to the SCERT, NCERT, Union minister of human resource development Prakash Javadekar, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In their letter, they stated that SCERT's negligence has put many meritorious students in disadvantageous position, going by the limited seats and tough competition.

The parents also stated that various possible remedies should have been explored before awarding grace marks. "One feasible alternative could have been to increase the seats this year to qualify more students from Stage 1 to participate in Stage 2. For example, if normally, only 10 students are selected this time, 20 students should be selected from the UT pool and allowed to sit for the Stage II exams," parents stated in their emails.

Pankaj Chandgothia, who also sent a legal notice, wrote to CCPCR seeking intervention as the result is all set to be announced on January 30.

Chandgothia demanded that a public inquiry must be held to ascertain as to how so many errors crept into the question papers. He also demanded a penal action against persons responsible for the glitch.

"The respondents are keeping mum about all their wrong doings, which is further causing unnecessary harassment to the students," he said and added that the commission must intervene and resolve the issue at the earliest to ease the suffering of the students.