The state government stoutly denies that the large number of failures (31 per cent) in the Intermediate second year physics exam was due to an incorrectly set paper. Nevertheless, the government is contemplating appointing an expert committee to look into the matter and to see if the grace marks demanded by parents on account of what they said were “deviations“ in the paper pattern, were justified.

Parents, students and lecturers demonstrated in front of the office of the Board of Intermediate Education in Nampally on Wednesday demanding award of grace marks. Reacting to this, minister for secondary education K. Parthasarathy held a press conference to deny the allegation that the paper-setting had caused the students to fail. 500 students may miss seats in BITS Around 500 MPC students face the risk of losing seats in the prestigious BITS campuses as they fall short of the 60% cut off mark in physics. Even if they secure merit in BITSAT, they will become ineligible to claim admissions. Armed with Telugu Academy physics textbooks prescribed by BIE for Inter students, the minister for secondary education, Mr K.

Parthasarathy, read out questions which figured in the textbooks, and then the questions in the exam paper, to prove that they were similar and there were no “deviation” from the curriculum in framing of questions.

“There is no problem with the physics question paper for those students who followed the government prescribed textbooks.

However, some corporate colleges print their own textbooks with an eye to get the best ranks in competitive exams like IITJEE, Eamcet, AIEEE etc, and force students to read only their books. It is these students and colleges who are now pointing fingers at the physics paper. The fact is that 80 per cent of the questions came from the Telugu Academy books,” the minister said emphatically.