Bengaluru, June 19 (IANS) Karnataka Police have filed an FIR against the principal and management of a private school in Bengaluru on Thursday for allegedly transferring Class 10 students to a government school without their parents’ knowledge, reportedly to secure a 100 per cent pass rate.

Parents claim the move led to their children failing the Board exams as they missed internal assessment marks.

The FIR was lodged by the High Grounds police in Bengaluru against Saint Mary’s Girls’ High School following complaints from parents. At least 10 students have failed in the class 10 Board exams due to this, police said.

Deepika, one of the affected students who failed the exam, told the media on Thursday that she had studied at Saint Mary’s since Lower KG.

Deepika also stated that at the time of issuing hall tickets, the school staff informed students that their examination centre was at a different location and directed them to write the exam at the government school. After the results were announced, she discovered that her marks card did not include internal assessment marks.

“We approached the school regarding this, but received no response. When we asked for the transfer certificate (TC), the school management told us to collect it from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) School. We don’t know why this happened. If I had received my internal marks, I would have passed,” she said.

“This has happened to 10 other students from the same school,” she added.

In their complaint, the parents further stated that since the children had not attended classes at the BBMP School, they were marked absent and were thus not awarded internal assessment marks, resulting in their failure in the Board exams.

The parents also claimed that they had paid fees to Saint Mary’s Girls’ School, and that the school had transferred the students to the government school without informing them. They also alleged that the school falsely declared the children as orphans.

According to the parents, the students did not receive internal assessment marks from the government school to which they were transferred, which led to their failure in the Board exams.

They further alleged that the school principal and management enrolled the students in the government school without their knowledge under the false pretext that they were orphans from an orphanage.

Police have taken up the investigation into the matter.

There has been no comment till now from the school regarding the allegations against it.

–IANS

mka/rad