KOCHI: The acceptance by the state government of the report of the four-member committee that probed the SSLC results muddle and its recommendation of action against the erring officials have vindicated the warnings given by Deccan Chronicle from January about the errors that were creeping into the preparations for the all-important examination.
Education Minister P.K. Abdu Rabb has so far been taking the stand that the muddle was a media creation and that there was no serious lapse.
He also took another interesting stand that if there was any problem that would have been caused by sabotage.
However, the committee headed by general education additional chief secretary V.S. Senthil has rejected both the contentions.
The committee did not blame the software prepared by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the SSLC exam, which is cited by some officials involved in the process as one of the reasons for the bungling.
It all started with server issues with Keltron not being able to deliver it on time, which was reported by Deccan Chronicle. However, this is also missing from the key points of the report revealed by the minister on Tuesday.
Despite being alerted personally by this correspondent on the gravity of the issue on January 21, Mr Abdu Rabb said that he was busy with the state school youth festival. None bothered to inquire into the lapse on the part of the minister in this regard.
The key findings of the committee that vindicated DC investigation include the failure of the Pareeksha Bhavan and its officials, including the systems manager and Pareeksha Bhavan secretary, to properly prepare for the exam.
The problems with grace mark and the mess created in the communication between NIC and Pareeksha Bhavan which have been pointed out by the committee too were cited by this paper in its reports.
The errors began with the data sheet entry of the basic details of students, with which DC started its reports, and culminated in the score sheet entry errors.
The panel finds fault with the wrong score sheet format for the wrong data entry format. However, the panel has bracketed data entry operators with score supervisors and Pareeksha Bhavan officials for this lapse.
