A group of undergraduate medical students of the 2015 MBBS batch in various government and self-financing medical colleges, who failed in their final year examinations reportedly by less than 10 marks, have now sought the Governor’s intervention for re-evaluation of their answer scripts.
They urged the Governor, who is also the Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS), to invoke the provision under para 5 in chapter 7 of the examination manual of the university that allows re-evaluation of answer scripts after the publication of results in exceptional cases. The petition was sent through Nirnayam Medicos, a group of doctors.
The letter claimed that the examinations had concluded on March 6 and the results were published on March 24. The teachers got only around six days for evaluation instead of two weeks as in the past. The university has a multi-layered system of evaluation where more than one evaluator goes through the answer scripts.
The letter pointed out that there was significant differences between the marks given by two evaluators for the same answer script. Most of the students failed by one or two marks in certain subjects.
Of the around 3,000 students who wrote the examinations, over 550 had failed. Claiming this to be an exceptional case, the students sought permission to apply directly to the KUHS for re-evaluation instead of doing it through the respective medical colleges.
The students also pointed out that the KUHS had extended the last date for applying for recounting of marks from April 18 to May 20. Most of the students had already applied for recounting and there was thus no point in extending the deadline. Instead, the university should begin the process of recounting of marks, the students said.
