Srinagar, Apr 14: In a significant development, a member of the Review and Appellate Committee of the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (BOSE) has resigned on ‘moral grounds’, citing “wilful trampling of justice” by the institution. The move has further dented the image of the BOSE, which is accused of trifling with the career of the students.
The development comes amid denial of justice to a Class 12 student, Zoya Sehar, who has “actually topped” the result declared recently.
In a letter addressed to the BOSE Secretary, a senior Kashmir University professor, Musadiq A Sahaf, who has been on the BOSE Review and Appellate Committee as a member for the past two years, has clearly pointed out the flaws in the evaluation system followed by the BOSE. “I would like to draw your attention to the evaluation system followed by you for Class 12 examination held in November 2010 wherein the students have been evaluated in the context of BOSE notification No: F (Acad-C)OAQ/10 Dated 09-11-2010. This notification, however, was followed by another notification, needless to say, issued by the Board, which appeared in Greater Kashmir on November 19, 2010,” Sahaf writes in the letter, a copy of which is with Greater Kashmir. “The latter notification directed the concerned students to attempt questions or any part thereof making it to a maximum of 75 marks in case of non-practical subjects and 60 marks in case of practical subjects whereas the earlier notification had directed the examinees to attempt questions only rather than parts of questions.”
Sahaf writes: “All the concerned students followed the instructions of the latter notification. However what seems outrageously shocking to me is the fact that the Board has got the students evaluated on the basis of the earlier notification dated 9-11-2010 and completely ignored the second notification. When contacted, the BOSE officials (Secrecy Section) maintained ominous silence vis-à-vis the second notification.”
The two-page letter has been forwarded to the commissioner/secretary School Education Naseem Lankar, who is the acting chairperson of BOSE, Director School Education Kashmir Shagufta Parveen and the Joint Secretary, Secrecy (BOSE), Noor Muhammad.
“This irresponsible and indifferent approach on part of BOSE has marred the career of many students, leaving them in lurch. Unfortunately, my daughter, too, has fallen prey to this arbitrary functioning of the BOSE,” Prof Musadiq, who is Dean of the KU’s Management Faculty, writes. “One wonders, how the functionaries of the BOSE could have taken the evaluation of this examination so non-seriously when they are fully aware of the significance of the merit of this particular class for admission to various professional and career-oriented programmes. Believing in the old adage to err is human and also as an educationist wanting to believe that a responsible educational institution like the BOSE will surely rectify this erroneous mistake, I approached its concerned officials for justice. But to my utter dismay, they very subtly refused to mete out justice to these thousands of children who had worked assiduously to make it big in their lives.”
Unable to get justice, Prof Sahaf writes: “Two years back I had accepted the membership of the Board’s Review/Appellate committee with a purpose to provide justice to students. But now with justice being wilfully trampled upon by the BOSE, my conscience doesn’t allow me to be a part of the system that is not fair and conducive to meritorious students. Therefore on moral grounds, I, herewith, tender my resignation from the membership of the committee.”
Prof Sahaf’s resignation, according to the sources, has raised a question mark on the entire evaluation process, which must lead to a high-level independent inquiry into the issue.
“It is the question of students and the state government cannot afford to take the issue lightly. The entire evaluation process must be reviewed and the responsibility for lapses vis-à-vis notifications fixed,” they said. “At the same time, justice must be delivered to the students who question their result on the basis of notification blunder committed by the BOSE. The students are being punished for none of their fault.”
The resignation has also endorsed Zoya’s claim that the BOSE does not own the second notification, which has not been forwarded to the evaluators.

ANOTHER CASE
Interestingly, Dr Musadiq’s daughter, Taiba Musadiq (Roll No. 871217) has questioned the BOSE evaluation like Zoya Sehar.
In her application to BOSE officials, Taiba has mentioned that she has been awarded less marks, given the BOSE was supposed to do evaluation as per the second notification issued by the it.
She has been awarded 670 marks. But after seeing her answer scripts, she feels that she should have been given 704 marks, which could be the first position in Commerce stream.
Taiba has been given 130 marks out of 150 in Factory Organization paper and 134 out of 150 in Business Mathematics. But, she believes that she has 18 marks more in the former paper while 16 more in the latter. But with BOSE refusing to own second notification, which has been duly published in local newspapers, she is denied the additional marks, citing “over-attempt.”

Lastupdate on : Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 IST