OTET Aspirants Protest Demanding Grace Marking

Cuttack: Hundreds of aspirants who had taken the Odisha Teachers Eligibility Test (OTET) staged a demonstration today in front of the office of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) at Bajrakabati Road in Cuttack on Tuesday demanding grace marking.

As per reports, there were some complaints about errors in the question paper and the answer key of the last OTET result published by BSE Odisha, following which the Board decided to provide grace marks after due deliberation.
The agitators alleged that this time they won't budge from their strike until uniform grace marking is provided to all.

Shivlal Sahoo, the President of State (Ex-Cadre) Teachers' Association said, "There were errors in the question paper for a total of 40 marks. The Board has made a mistake by employing a 3rd party agency to print the question."

Sahoo further alleged that from a total of 22,600 teachers only 2000 teachers have been granted grace marks while the rest are still languishing under Board's biased rules.

Speaking to OTV, Nihar Ranjan Mohanty, the examination controller at BSE refuted all allegations by the association. He said, "All the errors in question papers and answer keys were thoroughly scrutinized and revised and then required grace marks have been awarded to the examinees."

"Grace marking might be the cause of an increased passing percentage in this year's OTET," added Mohanty.