More than three lakh students reportedly failed in the Intermediate examinations this year, after the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) announced the TS 12th result 2019. This has sparked outrage and protests by students and parents alleging large-scale discrepancies in the evaluation process. As many as 21 students have committed suicide in the state. Although, it is not clear as to how many students took their life over the discrepancies in the result. Amidst the fiasco, now it has been reported that TSBIE has suspended a class 12 teacher and imposed fine on her for giving a student ‘0’ marks instead of ’99.’

Soon after the cases of students’ suicide were highlighted, a three-member committee submitted a report to the Telangana government, and BIE began to take action against those found guilty over negligence of duty. BIE later confirmed that it had imposed a fine of Rs. 5,000 against a 12th standard teacher identified as Uma Devi, who evaluated a Telugu paper of Navya, a class 12 student. However, instead of giving 99 marks, the teacher wrongly gave ‘0’ marks in the paper. Uma Devi has now been dismissed by her school management. It has further been reported that BIE also suspended Vijay Kumar, a teacher of tribal welfare school, who served as scrutiniser but failed to notice the blunder.

The blooper has triggered a spate of suicide by Telangana students and protests by parents and student bodies. They are demanding action against the higher authorities in the Board and the Globarena Technologies, an IT company, which was allegedly found guilty of the bungling. Besides, the government had also announced free re-verification of answer sheets of all those students who were declared failed in the examination.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 30, 2019 01:42 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).