Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Jun 8: Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) on Sunday June 7 confirmed that show-cause notices have been served to 70 teachers while three have been suspended, in connection with the SSLC answer paper evaluation blunders. It may be recalled, that the Board was left red-faced as innumerable mistakes were found in the evaluation of answer papers like non-addition of marks allotted to different sections, omitting to allot marks for particular questions, tabulation mistakes etc. To its dismay, the Board found that even in the case of high-scoring students, where evaluation is done through multi-tier system to be doubly careful, common mistakes were found, with three people emerging as toppers with the same marks, 618 out of 625, even though initially, only one had scored 618 marks.

The Board officials however, maintained that they had not played any mischief at pegging the maximum marks at 618 and that several people got 618 marks because of co-incidence. Kumar Nayak, department of public instruction commissioner too said that multiple toppers scoring the same marks was not an uncommon phenomenon.

KSEEB director Rajanna said that last year too, there were three toppers initially and two more were added to the list later. There is nothing undue behind this occurrence, he stressed. The Board will decide on the course of action against the erring teachers after receiving their replies to the show cause notices, he added.

Out of the three teachers suspended, one is from Bangalore University and the other two from Tumkur. They are understood to have committed grave errors in evaluation. Rajanna said, they have been suspended for specific reasons connected with evaluation of newspapers.