Only seniors to re-check CBSE answer sheets

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will engage senior teachers only for re-checking of the answer sheets of the students of Class X and Class XII board examinations from next year.

It will provide these teachers with a special training on evaluation of the papers to enable them to carry out an error-free re-checking and verification of the student's marks before deploying them to complete the task.

“The Governing Board passed a resolution in this regard,” the official sources told DH.

The Governing Board of the CBSE met here on Thursday to discuss various agenda including the board's decision to hold compulsory board examinations for Class X students from 2018.

Till this year, the Board deployed a large number of middle-level and junior teachers for rechecking of the answer scripts of the candidates of the board examinations.

The Governing board's resolution for the course correction comes after the credibility of the answer script evaluation exercise of the CBSE was recently questioned by the Delhi High Court.

Several students, who took Class XII board examinations this year, filed petitions in courts in different parts of the country, challenging the board's evaluation process and its decision to end the system of conducting the re-evaluation of the examinee's answer sheets from 2016.

Under attack over the several cases of errors in the evaluation of the answer sheets, the board recently moved in to look into the lacunae in its evaluation procedures and rectify them. It decided to set up two separate committees to “delve in depth into the problems.” Rechecking of the student's marks is limited to re-calculation of the scores and see if any of the answers done by them remained untouched during the first evaluation of their copy. Scores are changed if any discrepancy in marking is found during the rechecking exercise.   

The first committee will enquire into the process of evaluation and post examination processes to identify and analyse discrepancies and suggest corrective measures to strengthen the process. The second committee will study, analyse and suggest systemic improvements in the evaluation process make the system robust, the CBSE said in a statement on June 20.

“The decision to engage senior teachers only in the re-checking of papers was taken as part of our commitment to making our evaluation process robust,” a senior official of the board said.

The Governing Board also discussed the CBSE's intention to drop a provision from its moderation policy that leads to spiking of board examination marks.

“The Governing Board reiterated its resolve that spiking of the marks must be put to the end. The members also emphasised that the inter-board working group to be set up to evolve the consensus among all school boards on the issue must begin the exercise without any further delay committee,” the official said.

The CBSE can amend its moderation policy to stop spiking of marks of the students only after all the school boards also agree to do it from 2018, he added.