Kolhapur divisional board to act against Satara district teacher for letting Std XI girls handle Std XII answer sheets

KOLHAPUR: The Kolhapur divisional board chairman of the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Rajesh Kshirsagar, has said that the board will write to a junior college at Dahiwadi town in Satara district to take action, as per service rules, against a teacher, who allowed Std XI girls to handle Std XII Boards answer sheets for economics subject.

This was after a team of divisional board officials visited the junior college to verify a complaint and found the girls had indeed handled 25 of the 250 answer sheets that were given to the teacher for checking.

"We got a complaint through a call. A team of our officers went to the junior college and spoke to the girl students and the teacher, who was assigned the task to check 250 answer sheets. The girls told the team they handled 25 papers, which is in violation of confidentiality clauses. We are going to stop the remuneration given to the teacher for checking answer sheets and will write to the school to take appropriate action as per service rules," Kshirsagar said.

The board's team found that the girl students had handled some Economics paper answer sheets to mark lines on empty or unwritten space of the answer sheets.

A few weeks ago, a video of girl students handling Std X board papers was reported from a school in Vidni village of Phaltan tehsil of Satara district only.

In the Dahiwadi case, there was no CCTV footage or any video.

Kshirsagar said the board secured custody of the answer sheets and got it evaluated by a moderator. "The moderator submitted a report after freshly evaluating the answer sheets. There is no overwriting, there is no faulty evaluation found," said the chairman.

As per the exam rules the examiner has to evaluate the answer sheets in the classrooms of their schools only. No one is allowed to take answer sheets to their home. Similar to Vidni, in this case as well the teacher told the board officials that she sought help of the students to finish the work on time.