Bengal HS council says steps taken to assuage unsuccessful students; protests continue

kolkata: amid street protests by a section of disgruntled students over class 12 state board examination results, the west bengal council of higher secondary education (wbchse) on monday asked heads of schools to be in touch with it from july 29 for any possible review of the result of a dissatisfied candidate.                 the wbchse, which organises the examination, has taken note of the agony of the unsuccessful candidates and taken appropriate measures, its president mahua das said in a statement.              disgruntled students hit the streets in different parts of west bengal on monday, the second time since the publication of the hs exam results on july 22, demanding that they be declared as passed and their marks be increased as no examinations were held this year due to the covid pandemic and evaluations were based on previous results.               "we are asking the schools to contact the regional office of the council from july 29 onwards. all the dissatisfied students are urged to contact their respective heads from july 30," the wbchse statement said.              earlier in the day, the school education department asked district administrations to monitor the situation of every school where students have voiced their dissent, wbchse sources said.             das has met the heads of some educational institutions since saturday to know the grievances of the students and there was a rise in the marks of some candidates in two schools of arambagh in hooghly district and kolkata, they said.             a number of students agitated at ananda ashram vidyalaya at naktala and shyambazar av school in different parts of kolkata demanding their marks be raised, while at basanti and bisnupur in south 24 parganas district and domkal in murshidabad district, the candidates demanded they be declared as passed.             the unsuccessful students had protested in various parts of the state on july 24 also.           of the 8,19,202 higher secondary candidates, 97.69 per cent of them have passed the examination this year. about 20,000 of them have been declared unsuccessful.                an evaluation method had been worked out this year based on marks obtained by an examinee in the madhyamik (class 10 examination) and the best of four subject scores in the class 11 annual examination. the assessment marks in class 12 practicals in the case of science students and projects by humanities students were added to the evaluation criteria.               the evaluation was praised by principals of different colleges and authorities in the state-run universities as being scientific, fair and dynamic.            the educationists had expressed the fear that marking 100 per cent as passed and 90 per cent as first division holders in the class 10 board exams, the result of which was declared earlier, will create a crisis and deficit of seats in higher secondary institutions.