Asserting that the maximum number of students who failed in the examination conducted by the State Board of Intermediate Examination hail from the poor sections and those living in the rural areas, Bharatiya Janata Party State chief Bandi Sanjay said it was a result of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government’s failure in addressing infrastructural needs for online classes in the wake of COVID-19 protocols.
Consequentially, “it is because of the government’s failures that students have committed suicide, yet again. It is shameful on the part of the government, that a few students had even tweeted the leaders’ names before taking the extreme step,” he said, addressing media persons on Saturday.
Remembering the 2019 fiasco around Intermediate results which saw 27 student deaths, Mr. Sanjay wondered if students should continue to be the subjects of government’s negligence and corruption. He said the government has no other go than to claim responsibility for the failures at the examination and the deaths following it. Demanding that the government conduct free re-evaluation of the papers, he said the BJP would also initiate legal action.
The Intermediate first year exam results and the three suicides reported from Nalgonda, Nizamabad and Jayashankar Bhupalpally districts following it, besides reports of students attempting to take the extreme step, has caused tension and stir across the State.
Corrective action
Several voluntary and student wing organisations voiced the concerns of students and their parents, and demanded immediate corrective action from the government amid police tension on Saturday. According to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leaders, who protested before the BIE office at Nampally, the government deciding to go ahead with the examinations without the completion of syllabus was also a contributor to the failures.
“The government’s approach was lukewarm even after many surveys showed that lakhs of Telangana students were unable to access online education,” said its State secretary Praveen Reddy.
Calling for Intermediate educational institutions’ bandh on Tuesday he also said activists of ABVP would burn the government’s effigies across the State on Monday to protest police high-handedness at the protests on Saturday.
Leaders of the National Student Union of India, who also approached the BIE, said the authorities not responding to the grave situation and the police shielding them was adding to its guilt.
NSUI State president Venkat Balmoor, who was also detained by the police, called for educational institutions’ bandh on Monday.
Published - December 18, 2021 09:56 pm IST
