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Poll duty may sap energy, hit valuation: PU teachers

Last Updated 01 April 2014, 20:07 IST

Pre-university lecturers in the State are looking at a packed schedule over the next fortnight.

 

Simultaneous election duties and II PUC answer script valuation have put them in a tight spot. Lecturers fear that the stress might take a toll on the quality of valuation and students might have to bear the brunt in the end. 

The valuation for II PUC exams that recently concluded begins on April 3. On Tuesday, the process of coding and decoding the papers began. The Department of Pre-university Education aims to complete the valuation process prior to the polling day in the State, April 17. However, lecturers are sceptic. 
DPUE director Rame Gowda told Deccan Herald that elections were the obvious priority and lecturers would be exempted from valuation work on the days of election training. He said that there would be no scope for erratic valuation as each evaluator would not be given more than 12 answer scripts per session. There will be two such sessions in a day and the evaluators will work only between 9 am and 5 pm. In all, there are 19,506 valuators who will be evaluating papers across 37 centres in the State, including 18 in Bangalore. Further, cases of errors in last year’s valuation have been identified and action would be taken against those responsible for faulty valuation, he said. 

However, lecturers felt that there was undue pressure on them. Even as the PU department has initiated the pre-valuation process, the lecturers have to attend a two-day training for elections at the same time. 

A commerce lecturer in the city said: “One of the valuators in my centre came from Belgaum to Bangalore on Tuesday. On April 3, he has to be back in Belgaum for election training. The next day, he has to be back in the city again.” Moreover, commerce valuation would need at least 20 days and they would not be able to complete it before polls, he added. 

A science lecturer said, “The valuation for science papers are conducted in Bangalore centres. Outstation lecturers will have to travel to the city for valuation. They would have to travel back to their places for election training. Imagine the stress involved in making it on time and ensuring tickets. If the focus is on going back and forth, they will neither be able to concentrate on the elections nor the valuation. If anything goes wrong with the answer scripts, the lecturers will be penalised for it.” 

Moreover, this is also likely to cause a delay in the valuation, he said. 

“Owing to fatigue, some lecturers might not report to evaluation in-between. Absence will only lead to a delay.” He gave the instance of one of the centres in the city on Tuesday, where 125 lecturers were supposed to report for valuation duty, but only 90 turned up. Lecturers complained that last year too, they faced a similar situation due to the Assembly elections. 

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(Published 01 April 2014, 20:07 IST)

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