AHMEDABAD: In these competitive times, when a single mark can make or break a career, teachers assessing papers of the class XII general and science stream exams have made shockers of totalling errors.In their carelessness, teachers passed with flying colours students who were failing the exam and failed students who had passed. These teachers were, for the first time, summoned by Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) for a meeting chaired by education minister Bhupendra Chudasama in Gandhinagar on Wednesday, who gave them a piece of his mind.Sample this: A teacher gave a total of 80 marks to a general stream student when he had actually scored just 8 marks.In another instance, a teacher gave 40 marks to a student who had scored only 4 marks. Similarly, for a student who had scored 17 marks, the teacher’s miracle turned it all around for a score of 71 marks.On the flip side, many students who passed the exam were given failing marks. A student who had scored 11+11+11+11 was marked as having scored 11 marks, instead of the correct total of 44 marks.Fortunately, these errors were caught by the board authorities and were rectified. Authorties said teachers were made to realize the seriousness of these mistakes.“The teachers were given the full lowdown about their callous mistakes in checking papers and totalling marks. These kind of errors are unacceptable as even one mark has the potential to secure or lose a chosen career for a student. They were told to be careful from next year on, as they cannot do such injustice to students,” said education minister Chudasama said.The teachers were shown the answersheets assessed by them to allow their mistakes to sink in. The teachers reportedly kept apologising for the mistakes and promised to be more careful.Sources in the board said many teachers shared their issues with the minister. “Some teachers asked the authorities not to send them for paper checking at a central assessment centre more than 100km away from their homes. Some said they were made to check 35-40 answer papers while the rules mandate a ceiling of 25 papers a day,” a top official said.