Burning the midnight lamps, rushing through last minute preparation as students gear up for their board examinations – all a common sight.
Yet my heart trembles a little.
A year ago I stood in the same boat, with dark circles under my eyes and many unsolved question booklets, previous year’s question papers, guide books and NCERT text books in my hands. From History to Geography, Psychology to Political Science – I was running through everything in my mind. Did I leave something? Did I look into the other question pattern? I probably didn’t.
I forgot to check the pattern of negligence, corruption, malpractices that our education system has come to practise.
29 May 2017 is probably one date that I can never forget. It was the day that I anxiously opened the website to check my results. I was shocked to realise that my results had been withheld.
I belong to the 2017 batch of CBSE Odisha Zone. Thousands of students from Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh were badly affected by the discrepancies that came to the fore in the evaluation. Many students scored only single digit numbers in all subjects while the results of many others were withheld.
At the same time, CBSE scrapped the moderation and re-evaluation process. The only door they kept open was the system of re-checking and obtaining photo copies which cost around Rs 500 and Rs 700 respectively. The total amount was higher than the earnings of one month for a daily labourer or even a lower middle class family.
After crying my lungs out and coming to terms with the fact that there were many more students who were far more deserving than me and who’d been left betrayed by the faulty board, I decided to look for answers and justice.
I was looking for answers for all our years of labour, hard work and dedication. I was looking for justice that had been denied to so many deserving students. I was looking for answers from a faulty education system.
Can a common child dare to dream ? I wondered!
As thousands of complaint letters failed, as the requests for discussions failed, there was no other option but to take to the streets. Assembling hundreds of more betrayed students and parents, we started a peaceful satyagraha in front of the CBSE office. There were students from various parts of the state and other neighbouring states such as Kolkata and Jharkhand. What did we get for an answer? We were ultimately thrown into preventive detention.
This showed us the difference between the democracy we study about and the democracy we live in.
We battled our cases in court, even as we acknowledged that justice might be a long time coming. The saviour in our case were pro bono lawyers who gave the case their all so that students – whose college admissions deadlines were approaching – could get enrolled. The media behaved like the fourth pillar of democracy – from giving us coverage to fighting for us while we were in preventive detention.
But the clock wasn’t on our side, and neither were the deadlines of premier universities like Delhi University or the IITs. After a long battle, The Hon’ble High Court of Odisha passed a remarkable judgement providing relief to thousands of students. The process of re-evaluation was established specifically for this case.
While many students had already lost some top colleges due to the late process and faulty system, while many are presently leading a bright career in their respective colleges.
After all these incidents, today when I sit back and read news of CBSE paper leaks and related cases, I still remember the nightmare we lived and I ask myself: “Will things ever change?”
(Naimisha is a 1st year student of Sociology at Maitreyi College, Delhi University. She is an activist and writer and can be reached @SpeakNaimisha. This is a personal blog and the opinions expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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