‘75% Inter answer scripts evaluated incorrectly’

HYDERABAD: Seventy-five per cent of answer scripts of Intermediate Public Examination-2010, were evaluated incorrectly by junior lecturers, revealed a report prepared by the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE). Alarmingly, the report has raised several doubts about the Inter evaluation process and has come out just a month before the commencement of IPE-2011.

Around 1.10 crore answer scripts of 18 lakh (first and second year) students are evaluated every year by the Intermediate Board. And the report revealed that over 75 per cent papers were evaluated carelessly by lecturers.

According to the report which was prepared by an internal committee of BIE officials, in 45 per cent of the answer scripts, students were given zero marks for right answers. Also, in 40 per cent of answer scripts, several answers were not awarded marks. The report also stated there were tabulation errors in 20 per cent of the answer scripts.

With the report stating that 16 to 24 per cent of the lecturers who evaluated answer scripts have done wrong assessment of students performance, the students from junior colleges petitioned BIE stating the lecturers who committed errors should not be allowed to evaluate scripts this year. “We are worried that our Eamcet ranks would suffer,” said Deeksha Charan, a student of a private junior college in the city. The report also stated that 25 per cent of examiners did not evaluate parts of the answer scripts of several students.

As intermediate marks are considered while awarding ranks to students who write Eamcet, the error report is expected to be taken seriously by Damodar Raja Narasimha, minister of higher education and technical education. Sources said that the minister is already reconsidering the introduction 25 per cent weightage for Inter marks in Eamcet.

Interestingly, according to the review, while most students were marked low, some of them were even marked high by them.

When asked about the evaluation errors, BIE officials said that they are conducting special training sessions for inter evaluators at the state and district level to prevent such discrepancies. “Since the past 15 days BIE has been conducting training sessions for junior lecturers,” a BIE official said.

However, members of government junior college lecturers association said that evaluation errors can be avoided only if the number of evaluators increase. While there is a requirement of 80,000 evaluators only 35,000 are currently available with the board. “Each of the evaluators are forced to go through several scripts in a day and they commit errors,” said Madusudan Reddy, secretary, government junior college lecturers association. He added that only lecturers with three years of teaching experience should be allowed to value the scripts.

A high level cabinet committee is currently going through the report submitted by the board to decide whether, 25 per cent weightage need to be retained in the state’s education system.

Source : TOI