Guwahati, May 18: The four-member advisory committee constituted to look into the marking system of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (Seba), has recommended to award maximum five marks as grace in one subject to let a student pass the matriculation (class X) examination.

The committee said the grace marks should be given in maximum three subjects. The advisory committee, formed with the vice-chancellors of Gauhati University, Dibrugarh University, Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University and Kumar Bhaskar Varma Sanskrit and Ancient Studies University, submitted the report to the government on Monday.

A source said the grace marks should be awarded to a student only if he/she gets the overall pass mark.

The committee was astounded to find that "to please political bosses", Seba, although an autonomous body, had not only given grace marks to increase overall pass percentage but also to increase the number of letter marks (80 per cent) holders.

"When a student got 75 in a subject, he was given another five marks as grace so that he/she gets letter marks in the subject," the source said.

"The committee found that grace marks had been awarded in an unbelievable manner in some cases. In one instance, a student, who had actually got 12, was given 30 marks," the source said.

The committee has suggested the government that to maintain transparency, grace marks given to students should be mentioned in their marksheets.

Education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had created a flutter on May 8 saying Seba, in consultation with successive state governments, used to dole out grace marks generously in matric exam to inflate the overall pass percentage. Sarma said he had come to know about the real picture only when the Seba chairperson asked him recently how much should he increase the pass percentage, which is around 25 per cent, by giving grace marks.

The committee suggested that if there is any mistake in question papers, the students should be given the full marks against the "wrong" questions.

Seba often faces allegations over putting out-of-syllabus questions and flawed translation of question papers.

The Bodo Sahitya Sabha had pointed out that in the last matric examination, as many as 16 questions carrying total marks of 35 for the Bodo-medium students were not in accordance with the textbook the terminologies.