Siliguri, Dec. 16: The Jalpaiguri district magistrate today asked a headmistress to allow all students to appear for the Class XII exams, after the school failed to produce guidelines which said that those failing internal tests would be barred from appearing in the final board assessment.

In a two-page letter to the headmistress of Jalpaiguri Government Girls High School, district magistrate (DM) Vandana Yadav, said she had come to know that some students (three) had been discouraged from appearing in the annual examination (Class XII boards exams) for their poor marks in a test conducted by the school.

“The parents approached me and being the chairman of the governing body, I asked the headmistress to show me the instruction according to which a student could be stopped from appearing in the finals if he/she performed badly in an internal assessment,” Yadav said this evening. “They failed to produce any such guideline and instead said it was a convention (rather than a rule) that they were following.”

Yadav said according to the board guidelines, students appearing for the final exams had to have a fixed percentage of attendance and dues cleared.

“If they fail to fulfil these preconditions, I have no problem if the school stops them from appearing in the exams. But if there is any arbitrariness in the name of convention, I will protest,” she added.

In her letter, Yadav has asked the headmistress to “….. ensure that all students are allowed to appear in the examination, if qualifying on attendance, no dues, etc. There should be no prior screening on the basis of marks…”

Mukta Narjinari, the deputy secretary of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, admitted that Yadav was right. “According to the guidelines, there should be 70 per cent attendance and all the dues of the student should be cleared,” she said. “For the past two years, we have been holding exams at the end of Classes XI and XII. A student, passing the Class XI exam automatically qualifies for the Higher Secondary examination at the end of Class XII, provided he/she meets the two conditions of attendance and dues.”

Swapna Majumdar, the headmistress, said there was no instruction from the council that if a student failed in the test exams, he/she should still be sent for the finals. “Although the district magistrate is the chairperson of the governing body, we don’t think she has the authority to write to us and ask us about the guidelines.” No decision on the students has yet been taken.