 |
| Himanta Biswa Sarma |
Guwahati, May 16: Assam education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today defended the move of Board of Secondary Education, Assam to declare the matric and Assam high madrassa results through paid SMS.
The Seba, which conducted the matric or Class X final examinations in February, will declare the results tomorrow. Nearly four lakhs students sat for the exams.
On Tuesday, chief minister Tarun Gogoi had instructed the education department to immediately stop the move of Seba to declare results through paid SMS.
“I discussed the matter with the chief minister and told him about the benefits of declaring the results through text messages. Through the text messages, examinees will be able to see their detailed results, including total aggregate marks and marks received against every subject within a very short time after official declaration of matric results at noon tomorrow across the state,” Sarma told reporters here.
Earlier, examinees knew of their total aggregate marks and subjectwise marks after they collected their marksheets from the respective schools the following day or two to three days after the day of official declaration of the results.
Sarma claimed that the chief minister had appreciated Seba’s move and gave official approval to the same. He said the mobile service providers Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone and BSNL would charge 10 to 20 paise against every SMS from examinees.
According to the earlier plan, the mobile service providers were supposed to charge Rs 3 from examinees.
“I do not understand the logic of the All Assam Students’ Union to oppose the move. The Central Board of Secondary Education and Dibrugarh University have been declaring the results through paid SMS in Assam. Why did not the AASU oppose the same move of the CBSE and Dibrugarh University? In 2005 the AASU launched an SMS campaign to ensure the victory of Assam’s singer Debojit Saha in the SaReGaMaPa contest,” the minister said.
The AASU, which accused the Seba of joining hands with mobile service providers to earn money in the name of declaring the matric results, is not convinced by Sarma’s stand.
AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya said the students’ union would not agree under any circumstance with the Seba’s move. “The SMS campaign for Debojit Saha was voluntary in nature for the public. Here the Seba is forcing examinees to get their results through paid text messages on their mobile phones. Mobile connectivity in many areas of the state is very poor,” Bhattacharyya said.