A CBSE official tries to dissuade a protester at the board’s regional office in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 14: When the CBSE Patna regional office started operations in 2009, many heaved a sigh of relief thinking it would ease off several problems and speed up the examination process and announcement of results.

The office, which took the responsibility of bringing out the results for the first time this year, however, has created more problems then it has solved for the examinees.

First, the students of Patna region, including both Bihar and Jharkhand, had to wait for the announcement results and then they had to suffer because of the “average marking” in the results.

While Class X results for Patna region were announced on June 10, after a delay of almost 25 days from the first announced date, Class XII results were announced on May 27, four days after results were declared in other regions.

Till 2007, CBSE exams were held under Allahabad region. Patna office was set up in 2008.

A school principal said: “It was actually unfair that the result of Patna region was not announced with other regions. The CBSE has no provision that the results have to be announced separately for various regions. Not only this, the performance reports (stating which region had performed the best etc.) were also announced excluding Patna region. It’s unfair with the students of Bihar who have always performed well in the exams.”

According to sources, maximum delay happened during the codification of the answer sheets. The sheets were lying at the Patna regional office for more than a month.

A school director said: “Incompetent and inexperienced teachers were appointed head examiners for evaluation of Class XII answer sheets in few places. The teachers should have a post-graduation degree and a minimum seven-year experience of teaching senior secondary classes, to become head examiners.”

Students who are willing to go for re-totalling of their marks are afraid that by the time the results would come out, the admission dates would be over in most institutions outside the state. Minal Singh of Notre Dame Academy, who took Class XII examination this year, said: “I have already applied for re-totalling of marks since there is no provision of rechecking in CBSE.”

Singh has applied in the Delhi University for further studies. She said, “I’ll have to wait for the second or third cut-off list because only then would the re-totalled marks be declared by the board.” Singh is sure that her marks would increase after re-totalling.

However, some school authorities say the CBSE Patna regional office should be given some more time to settle down and operate smoothly. Dr C.B. Singh, principal of Radiant International School, said, “The situation of Ranchi CBSE office should not be repeated here. The office was closed in 1992 because of non-support of the local people and students. It should be realised that anything which is new, takes some time to settle down and therefore we should extend our support to the CBSE Patna regional office.”