Gujarat's Fourth-grader Scores 212/200 in Mathematics, Triggers Investigation

Vanshiben Manishbhai, a bright fourth grade student, living in a small village called Kharasana in Gujarat has been making headlines after she scored exceptionally high marks in Gujarati and Mathematics. Vanshiben shocked school management and her parents by scoring 211 and 212 marks respectively, surpassing the total marks of 200 allocated for each subject. The initial marks were later revised after the school management claimed it was a result of an error. Vanshiben then received a correct marksheet, which had scores 191 in Gujarati and 190 in Mathematics. While the marks for other subjects remained unchanged, the total was adjusted from 956 to 934, out of 1000.

Although the mistake affected her total marks, the student still scored A in all subjects, including Gujarati, Mathematics, Environment, Hindi and English. According to a report by India Today, after Vanshiben – who scored 93.40% – excitedly shared her scores with family, they discovered the blunder in her results. Soon after the incident came to light, district education officials launched an investigation to identify the cause of the error and implement measures to prevent it from happening in the future.

Earlier this year, it was revealed in the Gujarat Assembly that over a span of two years, more than 9,000 teachers were penalised for making errors while grading Class 10 and 12 board exam students. State education minister Kuber Dindor, in response to a query from Congress MLA Kirit Patel, disclosed that almost 9,218 teachers, including 3,350 from Class 10 and 5,868 from Class 12, made calculation mistakes during between 2022 and 2023. Reports suggest that the state government imposed heavy fines, which reached Rs 1.54 crore, while average penalty was Rs 1,600 per teacher.

As per the official report, 6,561 teachers, including 2,563 who checked Class 10 papers and 3,998 from Class 12, had already paid slightly over Rs 1 crore in fines. However, the remaining educators failed to pay fines.

The state education department took steps to collect remaining fines from teachers who made errors during the March 2022 board exam. They reached out to these teachers through their school administration and the district education officer. To ensure fairness, the Education Minister clarified that penalties were enforced on teachers only after they were personally shown their mistakes to avoid any disagreements. In order to catch and rectify errors on time, the department has allocated a validator to each center.