The serious errors in the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education results this year, which have triggered 21 student suicides, show that policymakers and the bureaucracy can badly fail at meeting their responsibilities. In one case, apparently caused by human error, the student’s marks statement recorded a zero, when in fact she had scored 99. Among the issues raised after the Telangana fiasco is whether the private agency selected to process the results could handle the scale of the operation. The tragic consequence of examination muddles is a spate of student suicides. Students should be counselled at school that marks in the final examination are not the sole determinants of success.

Source: The Hindu April 30, 2019 18:22 UTC