Ranchi, June 17: The fate of several thousand students, who failed to clear this year’s intermediate and matriculation exams, continued to hang in balance with an HRD department meeting on grace marks remaining inconclusive today.

HRD minister Baidyanath Ram had called the emergency deliberation with Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) officials this morning, primarily to help students who had cracked competitive examinations like AIEEE, but flunked in the board test. More than 57 per cent candidates had failed to clear the exam.

“The council did not have a detailed record of students who failed or qualified from each college. So, we could not arrive at any decision on grace marks,” the minister said.

The council has been given a day to file a complete report. “It is a tricky situation and we have to deal with it carefully because it is a question of the future of students,” he added.

HRD secretary Mridula Sinha said it was indeed surprising that students who had cleared competitive examinations flunked the intermediate.

“Having said that, I also want to stress that it isn’t always necessary that you will crack the board test because you cracked medical or engineering exams. The syllabi are different,” she said.

“Grace marks to a maximum of five have already been given to students as a standard board rule. Let’s see what more can be done,” she added.

The HRD department is also in a fix over the growing re-evaluation demand.

“We cannot re-evaluate. A recount is possible and we have told JAC to do so as soon as possible, at least for those who have to appear for counselling in engineering/medical,” she said.

Both the minister as well as the secretary remained tight-lipped about JAC’s role in conducting the examination and evaluating papers.

Intermediate teachers, however, blamed JAC for the me-ss. Raghunath Singh, general secretary of the Intermediate Teachers’ Association, claimed that JAC worked in haste and with over-confidence to jeopardise the careers of thousands of students.

“We will protest if grace marks are given to a chosen few when the evaluation system was itself flawed,” he said.

Citing reasons behind his claim, he said: “First, a CBSE curriculum has been implemented, but evaluation wasn’t done like that board. Second, PG teachers, who never take inter classes, were given papers to check. Third, the examiners were burdened with hundreds of copies.”

Sudhir Sinha, a professor at Jamshedpur Workers’ College, seconded him. “Practically, one can check a maximum of 20 copies a day, but examiners had to scrutinise a minimum of 50 copies. Simultaneously, they had to check university exam papers,” he said.

Neither JAC chairperson Laxmi Singh nor its secretary Yamuna Giri were available for comments.

However, the HRD secretary said she had asked JAC to come clean. “This is a time when everyone will blame each other. JAC is a facilitator for exams but papers are set and evaluated by teachers. We have asked JAC to come clean on examiners to silence critics.”