If there’s one thing the state board can teach us, it’s how to make money. In just one month, the Mumbai division has managed to pocket nearly Rs 61 lakh merely by photocopying answer sheets from the Std XII exams
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If there’s one thing the state board can teach us, it’s how to make money. In just one month, the Mumbai division has managed to pocket nearly Rs 61 lakh merely by photocopying answer sheets from the Std XII exams. This was revealed following an RTI query from a disgruntled parent, who claims the board is raking in money under the pretext of re-evaluation.
Raigad resident Zahid Fakji filed an RTI in the matter after his son had a bitter experience and lost an academic year
Applying for photocopies is the first step in the re-evaluation process, where students can review their answer sheets and decide if they want to apply for their papers to be assessed again. Students have one month after the results to apply for photocopies.
Money-spinner
In the one month since the declaration of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) results for 2016, the Mumbai division of the state board received applications from 6,972 students requesting for photocopies of their answer sheets in one or more subjects. The board charges Rs 400 per answer sheet and bagged a total of Rs 60,92,400 just from this in May.
Students who want to apply for re-evaluation then have to pay another Rs 300 per subject, but they have just five days to do this from the day the photocopies are issued to them. But many parents are of the opinion that this is nothing but a money-spinning scheme.
One such parent is Raigad resident Zahid Fakji, who filed an RTI in the matter after his son had a bitter experience. “My son Shahzad scored 58% in HSC and we wanted to apply for re-evaluation because we were sure that he cannot have this low score. We spent Rs 1,200 on applications for photocopies in three subjects. We were asked to wait for a message from the board to collect a Xerox copy, but we never received any such message. While waiting for the SMS, my son missed out on his chance to apply for re-evaluation because the five-day window had passed,” alleged Fakji.
‘Unreasonable’
“Nowadays, these education boards have also working like a corporate. I don’t understand why they have to charge Rs 400 for a photocopy, when they charge only R300 for the revaluation process. It is unreasonable,” said Fakji.
Fakji isn’t alone in questioning the motive of the board; another parent from Raigad, Naveed Ulde also faced the same problem. He told this reporter, “My son got 32 marks in Mathematics, which is impossible. We came from so far for the photocopy of answer sheets. The board should have at least informed us on time. Now an entire year has been wasted for my son; the board has managed to earn a lot of money out of it, but the students remain without any benefit.”
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