Carelessness led to Usha Dashrath Pawar (16) being marked absent for the first three papers of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams that started on March 5. A student of Kalbadevi Municipal School, Chunabhatti, Pawar sat in the wrong seat for three straight days before a supervisor noticed something was amiss.
Pawar is now in danger of being failed in the first three papers, even though she answered them while occupying a different seat.
Pawar said she reached the exam centre at Swami Vivekanand Vidyalaya, Kurla (W), late for her first paper on March 5. As she was looking for her seat (No B183236), a peon guided her to Room 110, Block 7, on the first floor of the school.
The student who should have been sitting in Seat No B182936 was absent and the supervisor, Vasumati Mokashi, allowed Pawar to take that seat without checking her hall ticket.
Mokashi has said, I checked only the last two digits of her seat number and signed the paper after the bar-code sticker bearing number B182936 was stuck on it and the student also did not bring it to my notice.
VS Pande and Archana Satam, the supervisors on the two subsequent days, also admitted that they did not check the number properly.
On the fourth day of the exams, supervisor Urmila Sharma noticed Pawar was not in the right seat. She brought the matter to the notice of school principal HS Upadyay. Pawar sat for the remaining papers in the correct seat.
The principal brought the mistake to the notice of the divisional secretary of the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education on the same day.
Asha Shah, who employs Pawars mother as a maid, is demanding that the education board not mark Pawar absent for the three papers.
Principal Upadyay is also a worried man as the prestige of his school is at stake. He said, Such an incident has never taken place in the past. The student and supervisors are both at fault.
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