The very first Saturday of this month witnessed hundreds of young faces of the valley enduring agony due to inefficacious management of practical exams by JKBOSE in district Anantnag of South Kashmir. Students who had recently accomplished their class XII written exams were avidly waiting for their practicals to be conducted ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. As soon as the date sheet was circulated in the WhatsApp groups, hundreds of students found no track of their subjects in the date sheet. The authorities had missed the roll numbers of a large number of students. The revised date sheet was published and still, a large chunk of roll numbers were omitted.
The following morning, the district saw a large number of students in total chaos and confusion about their practical exams. In the meantime, students reached the respective centres of their schools where many of them were rejected on the pretext of the non-availability of subject teachers and the omission of their roll numbers from the date sheet. The board office of Anantnag was jammed with students and parents requesting the authorities to bring out a way for them to be able to appear in the exams. Students were allotted new exam centres and the exam was conducted in a very chaotic way across the district. Students reported that the officials reached the district office around noon on such a pivotal day which was heartbreaking for a lot of them.
This recklessness and negligence of the board authorities have again unfolded before us a good many aspects of the faulty administration that has been prevailing in Kashmir for decades. Our departments are lagging behind in aspects of precise and error-free performance. Words like “errors”, “faults” and “lapse” have found a permanent place in our dictionaries. It is not the first time that the people of Kashmir have suffered at the hands of the administration. The story is not new. In fact, it is one of the oldest ones. Even now, in a time where modern technology has made office work largely easier, we come across such blunders. The facts if analysed bring us to the bottom line that our departments are just functional empires of corrupt, boastful & indifferent officials. The misconduct of practical exams is an ideal example of the negative and spiritless attitude of officers towards public work.
If we look closely at this matter, we get a clear picture of how negligent they are when it comes to conducting annual exams. Recently, we witnessed the wrong distribution of Physical Education question papers in the exam centres across the valley. And today when the entire district of Anantnag witnessed chaos and unsureness, we could clearly spot the thoughtlessness of our senior officials. This blunder by the district board authorities was heavier on the students belonging to the upper reaches of the district where exposure is low. Many weren’t able to even report to the board office. Many parents couldn’t attend to their children at this time due to early morning engagements. Dozens of students missed their exams today and were in a state of anxiety.
We live in times where institutions across India conduct exams of lakhs of students without any ruckus due to the careful diligence of officers concerned but our board underperformed in conducting practical exams of some thousand students. We are still living in an era where students who work hard on their subjects for the entire year amidst different situations face inconvenience on the day of their exams. It feels as if we are developing a generation of people who are used to facing problems even in the smallest tasks of their lives because of defective administration. No work seems to be complete till a person gets entangled in distress to get it done.
Expectations were shattered on this day and students felt utterly dismayed. I am a personal bystander to the inconvenience faced by my mates during this time. Let this article be the voice of hundreds of students like me who faced this crisis personally. This day should be remembered in the history of inefficient management of board officials. Stern action is needed about this issue so that good examples are set or we will continue to see such faults because of our past leniency towards such issues. Let’s hope that the education department acts promptly.
The writer is a Class XII student (JKBOSE) and can be reached at [email protected]

Shah Faez Hussain