Odisha Student Unable to Apply for Premier Institutes

In a surprising report, a student who has qualified for the prestigious premier technical institutes such as IITs, IISERs and, Indian Institute of Science through the JEE Advanced Entrance Exams, has scored only one mark in math in the XII^th Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Board exams. This has been caused by the CBSE’s alleged mark discrepancy, causing the student to attempt suicide by jumping out of a running car.

The student’s father told reporters that he has been neither eating nor sleeping properly post the results earlier this month. Stating that his son has been a bright student and hard worker since childhood, he requested that exemplary action be taken against those who have caused this blunder of marks.

Another student of ODM Public School, Soumyajit Bal, is also suffering a similar fate. This intelligent student has also qualified the JEE Main exams, but is not eligible for participation in the course counselling due to his overall score being less than 75% - a compulsory requirement for the admission process.

His father Bichitra Kumar Bal told reporters that his son would lose a year of his academic life if he is not able to apply for the counselling by the 26^th of this month. He stressed that his son, being a bright student, had scored 10 CGPA in his CBSE X^th Board exams, and more than 90% marks in his XII^th class exams. They have applied for verification of marks, but the results are pending.

Soumyajit had expected to score above 90% in his CBSE XII^th Boards, but has been awarded a score much below that.

Asutosh Patnaik was looking forward to getting admission for architectural courses at a government institute with a total of 187 marks. However, his math score is only 12, and his overall percentage is 68% in the XII^th board exams. Asutosh alleged that it was not possible for him to score so low in math, and said that there must have been a mistake in re-evaluations.

He said that students have scored single-digit marks in some papers, and more than 90 in others, and blamed CBSE for ruining students’ careers. Asutosh is now preparing for compartmental examinations.

Suryanshu Panda is another student who is ranked at 6997 in the JEE Main, and has qualified for the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test (BITSAT). However, like Soumyajit, he is also not able to qualify for the counselling process due to low scores in chemistry, English and physical education. Shmikshya Sharma is yet another to score single-digit scores in Physics, Chemistry and Biology, putting her qualification for entrance tests such as KIIT and SOA on hold.

In the wake of the careers of several such students being held at stake caused by irregularities in the awarding of marks by the Odisha Abhbhabak Mahasngha, the state-level parents’s association has asked of the HRD Ministry to allow the students to take part in the counselling process for National Level Technical Institute admissions.

Chairman of the Mahasngha, Sudarshan Das has stated that the students should be allowed a chance to take part in the counselling, and not be deprived of higher education due to mistakes made by the CBSE Board, as they await verification and re-evaluation of their papers.