Patna: Like any other student, fear dominates her all other emotions as the date for result of her examination draws closer but she has one more reason to be worried.
KavitaKumari, who appeared in matriculation examination from a government school in the state capital this year, has little choice but to pray that she does not become another victim of an education system, which is plagued by all ills.
She has appeared in the matriculation examination conducted by Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), which had earned notoriety for committing large scale irregularities in the publication of result for intermediate examination last year. This year is not exception either.
The matriculation examination result is expected to be announced on June 20 but all students are keeping their fingers crossed, whether they would be awarded marks what they deserve.
The fear of Kavita and lakhs of other students who had appeared in the matriculation examination is not unfounded as out of a total 12.40 lakh students who appeared in the Class 12th examination, only 8.34 percent obtained more than 60 percent.
More than 8 lakh out of total 12.40 lakh students, who had appeared in Class 12th examination this year have failed. Another statistics is also not less grimy as around 630 schools in the state have zero result in the examination.
Equally shocking is the deplorable number of science teachers in government schools as according to a statistics, the state`s 3500 government schools have only seven Physics teachers.
The teacher-student ratio in the state is also not less appalling as against around 27.5 million students, there are only around 5,00,000 teachers, of whom 4,00,000 are on contract.
Bihar`s education sector, which had become a subject of ridicule after RubiRai, the topper in Intermediate examination conducted by Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) could not give replies to media queries on her subject, political science. She described political science as ‘prodigal’ science, related to art of cookery.
But it was not the end to the grimy scenario of the education sector in the state, as this year topper in the science stream Ganesh Kumar who had re-appeared in the intermediate examination by fudging his age was also caught on the wrong side of fence when he fumbled in giving replies to basic queries on his subject, music.
BSEB chairman Anand Kishore, putting up a brave face sought to defend topper`s merit saying his guilt was related to lowering of age and use of forged documents for re-appearing in the intermediate examination.
Only in 2015, shocking photographs had surfaced showing how friends and relatives scaled high rise examination centre in state`s Vaishali district to pass answer chits to their wards during matriculation examination.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in his seven point resolve, the guiding principle for his government` s development goals has given a special focus on youths but sadly their basic need, ‘education’ has been neglected. The flawed school examination system in the state has taken a heavy toll on the state government`s reputation.
It is alleged that large number of unqualified teachers were given the task of evaluating answer books of students who had appeared in the intermediate examination this year.
In addition to problems like incompetent teachers, the education sector is afflicted with other malaises including affiliation to several ill-equipped intermediate colleges and schools functioning without adequate number of teaching and non-teaching staff and their alleged involvement in unlawful practices.
BSEB took the drastic step to cancel affiliation of intermediate colleges and schools when the replies furnished by these institutes to the show-cause notices served to them were found not satisfactory.
The clean-up exercise had started after the merit list scam was revealed last year.
BSEB has also sought replies from district education officers who had forwarded their recommendations for recognition to these institutes.
