NewIndpress

Bangalore, Dec 26:There is a price for every mistake. And Karnataka's teachers have paid it literally for every mistake they committed in the SSLC answerscripts.

In a move that should shame every wrong-doer, the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) has penalised 1124 teachers for their slip-ups in the evaluation of SSLC answerscripts of March'2006 exams. Their names, where they work etc., too have been put out on the Board's website so that the teachers dare not repeat their mistake.

These teachers are working in government, government-aided and private unaided schools and had participated in the evaluation of answerscripts. Either out of carelessness or lack of competence, they committed mistakes that affected the scores of students. Their mistakes, however, came to light when the Board took up retotalling of marks and revaluation of answerscripts following requests from students.

The Board considered errors in totalling of marks, and where the difference between the marks scored by the candidate and marks awarded is six marks or more. Board Director T M Kumar told this newspaper that the extent of penalty depended on the gravity of the mistake committed.

``The errors include wrong-totalling resulting in a big difference in marks or undervaluation where the evaluators would have awarded marks less than those scored by the student,” he said. The penalty ranged between Rs 300 and Rs 2,000.

The punishment does not end just with this. Evaluators who have committed grave errors will not be invited for evaluation work in April 2007. ``We cannot take chances with the career of students. During the training that we held for teachers, we have highlighted the importance of proper evaluation but still mistakes occur. However, we will not consider people who have committed major mistakes,” Kumar said.

The Board directed admitted that there is a shortage of teachers for evaluation work, and that was why the teachers who committed errors were still allowed for the evaluation work after levying a penalty. The teachers, he said, however, had been strictly warned that they would face stern disciplinary action if they repeated their mistakes in future too.