Goof up in St Mary’s College
SHILLONG: The St Mary’s College centre in city witnessed an unusual scene on the first day of the ongoing Higher Secondary School Leaving Certificate Examination of a student writing her answer paper even three hours after the close of the scheduled hour. And, this happened because the girl had initially been given the question paper of the previous year!
The Shillong Times reporter who visited the centre at around 4 pm found the student of Class XII Arts still writing her answer script though the schedule hours of the examination were from 10 am to 1 pm.
In an apparent bid to shift the blame for the goof, the college authorities claimed that the girl had reached the examination centre late – at about 10.15 am instead of at 9.40 am. – and in her hurry entered the wrong examination hall. “We have informed the Board about this matter,” the college authorities said. The girl was not available for comments. “Please wait for confirmation,” Board chairman EP Kharbhih said in reply to an SMS message sent to him.
“We had distributed the questions papers as per the number of students which had been fixed for particular examination halls. But since the student landed in a wrong examination hall, the teacher had to collect a question paper from the room where the question papers were stored,” the college authorities said. Instead of taking this year’s question paper, the teacher in a hurry mistakenly took out the question paper which was of last year, college authorities stated.
This excuse left the question unanswered, however, how the girl was assigned a seat in the wrong examination hall when in a board examination it is a standard practice to assign seats according to roll numbers of students and not directed to the right hall at the very beginning.
“After realizing that the student had landed in a wrong examination hall, she was shifted to the examination hall where she was supposed to write her examination. The student did not surrender the question paper but carried the last year’s question paper to the other examination hall and appeared for her examination,” college authorities informed. “It was in the very last minute that the student brought to the notice of the teacher that she had attempted last year question paper,” the authorities said. Concerned over the future of the student, the college authorities decided to give an opportunity to her to write her examination as per the question paper of this year at the end of the scheduled examination hour.