A simple clerical mistake by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education proved devastating for 22-year-old Krishna R Mahato.
Board of Secondary Education in West Bengal makes a ‘Radha’ out of a Krishna
KOLKATA: A simple clerical mistake by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education proved devastating for 22-year-old Krishna R Mahato, who passed his secondary examinations in the first division in 2002.
Krishna was unable to pursue higher education or enroll in an employment exchange since his secondary exam mark-sheet erroneously mentions his gender as 'female'. Five years on, Mahato has not been able to get the board to rectify his gender.
Krishna had received his registration certificate and admit card for the secondary school examination in 2002, where his gender was wrongly written as female. He immediately contacted the authorities of his school, Kashidi CRCG Vidyapith, who requested the board to rectify the mistake.
The board came out with a strange explanation for the mistake. They said if Krishna's parents had spelt his name as "Kishno", ending with the letter "O", the mistake would not have occurred. In Bengali, ‘Krishno’ is male, while ‘Krishna’ is female. However, it is common for somebody whose name is pronounced ‘Krishno’ to spell it as ‘Krishna’ in English.
Finally, the board authorities allowed Krishna to go ahead and appear for the examination with the faulty admit card, with the understanding that it would be set right later. But when Krishna received his mark-sheet and pass certificate, he was aghast to find that the same gender mistake persisted on the vital documents.
As a result, Krishna was unable to get admission in any institution for higher studies. There was no provision for higher secondary education in his own school and hence Krishna had to apply in other institutions. But he was refused admission everywhere because of the gender mismatch.
The regional director of the secondary examination board, S Chakraborty admitted to DNA that this was a mistake. He advised Krishna to meet him with all the papers to rectify the mistakes.
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