OMR sheets out but HSC results mess continues
Even as the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha on Monday uploaded scanned OMR answer sheets of matriculation students on website, many students and their parents staged a demonstration in front of the Board office demanding among others, re-evaluation of answer sheets in subjective section.

Nearly six lakh students appeared the state matriculation examination this year in six subjects having objective and subjective sections of equal mark. Held in the month of February-March, the examination results were published in haste on April 30 with blunders aplenty.

Facing severe criticism, the Board in the meantime rehashed the results twice to rectify the marks in objective sections of each of the six subjects and uploaded the OMR sheets after 12 days of publication of results.

"But the students are still upset with marks they have got in subjective sections, particularly in Science," said a student leader pointing out that some students have got between 45 and 50 marks in objective section and between 5 and 10 marks in subjective section, which is highly incongruent.

While Board officials have invited applications from students for rechecking in their subjective papers in requisite format with a cost, the All India DSO leaders demanded that the rechecking of these papers should be done afresh for free of cost.

Under the banner of AIDSO, the students, parents and eminent citizens of the city staged a demonstration on the day in front of the Board office demanding to completely scrap the gradation system of results, which was introduced for the first time this year.

They also demanded for reintroduction of publishing the results in booklet form.

"Due to bloomers in the results and variance of marks in objective and subjective sections, many students committed suicide soon after the results were announced on April 30," said AIDSO secretary Bagyarabi Das, without substantiating the number of suicides but demanding that each victim''s family be given adequate compensation.