J-K schools axe students for best results

It’s the same story in schools across the State, year after year. Names of thousands of regular Class X students, whose chances of passing are slim, are quietly struck off the rolls and then mentioned as private candidates, in a desperate attempt by schools to boost their results. As students are cheated and their careers jeopardised, schools manage to show high pass percentages even as the overall board result remains dismal.

The board guidelines say that a student "cannot sit as a private candidate unless he has left the school nine months earlier." The schools do not bother with such problems; they simply fudge the records. While in some cases students may not come to know of the change in their status till results are out, mostly it is only days before the examination that the students learn of their having been made private candidates and have neither the time nor the motivation to resist the school’s decision.

"The decision is conveyed to the students in a manner that it appears to be in their interest. Those who may still protest are silenced with threats of stopping them from appearing in the exams," said a board official. For these private candidates, most of whom fail, the schools later have no responsibility.

Though private schools charge a much higher fee, they cheat the students with as easy a conscience as the government schools. Guru Nanak High School, Baramulla, for example, registered 69 regular students in Class IX in 1997. However, it sent forms of only 23 to Class X. The school managed a pass percentage of 83 per cent. Hanifa Model School, also in Baramulla, registered 173 students with the board in 1997 but sent forms of only 80 of them to Class X, managing a pass percentage of 99!

In government schools, the situation is worse. The Government High School, Hardaturu, Anantnag, had 114 students registered with the board in Class IX but it sent forms of only seven students. All the seven students passed and the school got a pass percentage of 100. The Government Boys School in Charar-e-Sharief sent regular forms of only 40 of the 100 students it had registered and managed a pass percentage of 88.

Some government schools which try to be honest get catastrophic results, showing the deep mess in which school education in Jammu and Kashmir has landed. The Government School, Pargwal, Jammu, for example, sent regular forms of 105 of the 131 students it had registered. The school’s result was four per cent. For a school at Allah, Bisnah, which sent regular forms of 128 of the 139 candidates it had registered, the pass percentage was just 8.

But for all the schools’ hoodwinking, the pass percentage in the board’s Class X results hardly touch 30. In Kashmir, the overall pass percentage has been around 25 for many years now.

Is the board taking steps to check this malpractice? "From next year we are not going to accept any forms of private candidates sent by the schools," said M A Charoo, Chairman of the board.