Exam goof-up: Telangana teacher sacked for giving 0 marks instead of 99

HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) has penalised a private educational institute lecturer, who served as examiner, after a second-year Intermediate student was allegedly given a ‘0’ in the Telugu paper, even though she secured 99.
The girl, from Mancherial district was given '00', instead of 99 marks that she had scored in Telugu. “It is a blunder and hence the Board has taken action and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on the examiner G Umadevi, while scrutiniser S Vijay Kumar (lecturer at a state-run junior college) has been suspended and an enquiry has been ordered,” an official release said.
The examiner, lecturer at a private educational institute had given '00' instead of 99 marks while Kumar, who was the scrutiniser did not notice the error in the marks, the release said adding the examiner has also been suspended by the private educational institute. The exams were conducted during February and March this year and the results were announced on April 18.
There have been ‘goof-up’ allegations after the results were announced on April 18 and 3.28 lakh students were declared as failed. With 21 students committing suicide, the state government was forced to order re-verification of answer sheets of the failed students. Opposition parties and student groups are demanding action against the higher-ups in the Board, alleging that that BIE was shielding those who committed the blunders.