Evaluators in Indore wrap up 8 lakh MP board answer sheets after workforce boost

Indore: What began as a daunting race against time ended with evaluators in Indore completing the mammoth task of checking more than eight lakh answer sheets of the Class 5 and Class 8 MP board examinations by March 15.The district had nearly 8.5 lakh answer sheets to be evaluated across six centres. Initially, around 1,100 teachers were assigned the work, each expected to check about 40 copies a day. At that pace, barely 44,000 answer sheets could be examined daily, making it difficult to complete the exercise within the limited timeframe.However, the education department stepped in to speed up the process. The evaluation workforce expanded from 1,100 to nearly 4,000 teachers in the final phase. With the additional manpower, the centres were able to significantly increase the pace of assessment and finish the task within the deadline.Teachers from private schools were also brought in to assist govt school teachers in the evaluation work. The large pool of evaluators worked across 6 centres in the district to complete the massive exercise on time.District project coordinator (DPC) Sanjay Mishra said the department acted quickly when it became clear that the initial workforce was not enough to handle the volume of answer sheets."We had to complete the task within the deadline, so the number of evaluators increased. Teachers from private schools were also included along with govt teachers. In total, around 4,000 teachers were engaged in the evaluation process, which helped us complete the work on time," Mishra said.The timely completion of the evaluation is expected to help the department move ahead smoothly with result preparation. Officials said the answer sheets have now been compiled and the process of tabulating marks is underway.According to education department sources, the results of the Class 5 and Class 8 board examinations are likely to be declared around March 25. Once announced, thousands of students across the district will be able to access their results through the official portal of the state education department.Officials said completing the evaluation of such a large number of answer sheets within a short period required coordinated effort from teachers and administrators across the district.