Scam-hit board to mark answer sheets digitally

Patna: Grappling with infamy the state earned following the topper scam in May last week, the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) has decided to go for digital evaluation of answer sheets of the examinations conducted by it.

Answer sheets of the compartmental exams of around four lakh Class X and 2.5 lakh Class XII students, to be held in November, will also be examined digitally. It will cost around Rs 2 crore to the BSEB.

The move follows instances of evaluators tampering with answer sheets or even replacing them, that came to light during the probe into the merit scam. "Unlike manual evaluation, digital evaluation will not involve physical movement of answer sheets," BSEB chairman

Anand Kishor

told mediapersons at the BSEB HQ on Wednesday.

Under the new arrangement, every district will have one strongroom for answer sheets of the entire district. Here, the answer sheets will be barcoded under the supervision of the DM concerned to make them non-identifiable. The answer sheets will then be scanned using high-speed scanners and uploaded to a central server (hosted on cloud). The hard copies will be stored under official seal in the strongroom.

From the server, the answer sheets will be electronically transferred to desktop computers installed at evaluation centres in districts. Evaluators will examine the answers and award marks electronically following which the computer will lock the copy and tabulate the marks. The tabulated results will be sent back to the central server for final computation and preparation of results. Digital checking of every answer sheet will cost Rs 50 to 55.

Enumerating its benefits, Kishor said it would reduce the need of fresh scrutiny by 99.9% as the marks would be totalled by computer. Also, no answer will be left unevaluated as the computer will not calculate the total in case of incomplete evaluation of any answer sheet. The question of answer sheets getting misplaced will also not arise.

No less importantly, the results will be processed faster. "We may publish the results within a week of the completion of evaluation," Kishor said and added the digital evaluation would be done mostly in offline mode as the "internet connectivity in the state is still a challenge in far-flung areas".

Since over 90% of the teachers engaged for evaluation are not tech savvy, the BSEB has also decided to organise an orientation-cum- training programme for them prior to the evaluation.

"Based on our experience in the compartmental exams, we will decide whether or not to adopt it in the 2017 final exams," Kishor said and pointed out the CBSE used the system in 2013, 2014 and 2015 exams. So did the state exam boards of Odisha, Meghalaya and Goa.

"We had a talk with the officials of Odisha board, which digitally evaluated over 12 lakh copies in 2015 and 2016, before we decided to go ahead with it in the compartmental exams this year," he said.

The biggest advantage of the system, Kishor said, is that an hourly progress report of the evaluation across the state will be sent to the BSEB HQ where the chairman and secretary can monitor it real time.

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