DAULAT RAHMAN
Good news
Guwahati, May 9 : The Board of Secondary Education, Assam, today said results of the matric examinations would be declared within a month, allaying fears of delay.
The board could not avail of the services of several teachers in evaluation of answer scripts of 4 lakh examinees because of engagement of several teachers in the Assembly poll duty.
But dedication of the evaluators has helped the board complete the whole exercise within the stipulated deadline, Seba secretary L.N. Sarma told The Telegraph.
Sarma said Seba should be able to declare the results either on May 27 or 28.
Last year’s results were declared on May 29.
Seba normally recruits nearly 10,000 teachers as evaluators. The board has 46 zones in the state and each zone requires a minimum of 200 evaluators. But this time the Seba could not recruit the requisite number of evaluators because of Assembly election duty.
The fear of delayed results arose after Seba failed to complete the preliminary evaluation by March 25.
“There were uncertainties if Seba would be able to stick to the Supreme Court’s deadline of declaring the Class X final examination results within June 10,” a source said.
Admitting the initial hiccups, Sarma said Seba tried to motivate the existing evaluators and told them to avoid any situation of uncertainty over declaration of the matric results. He said the board would also hold a meeting soon after the tabulation process in completed to take a final decision on allotting pass marks to students who have failed to do well in the general mathematics paper.
He admitted that a large of students found the general mathematics a bit tricky and tough. “Once the tabulation process is completed we will get to know the overall performance of students and thus, it will be easier for the board to take a decision on allotting marks in the mathematics paper. For example, if a student secures above 60 per cent marks in other subjects barring mathematics, the board would consider the performance of the particular candidate as good and accordingly adopt a liberal attitude towards mathematics,” he said.
Seba faced criticism for making the general mathematics paper tough. There is a great deal of fear among many examines that they would not be able to secure even the pass marks of 30 in mathematics.
Sarma said the board earlier told evaluators that instead of focusing on correct answers in the general mathematics paper, they must try to find out whether the students have followed the correct procedures to solve the sums.
Students who have followed the correct procedures should be given the “benefit” for making the right attempts.
Seba had also instructed its evaluators to quit their “conservative” attitude and become liberal in allotting marks to students who sat for this year’s exam.
