Improving Evaluation of Board Papers: Next in pipeline, biometric attendance for teachers at evaluation centres

One of the main reasons of committing “major blunders” is teachers’ lapse in their assigned hours “who are always in a hurry to complete evaluation and reach home”.

Nearly 20,000 teachers are employed as evaluators.

After the decision of naming and shaming over 6,500 teachers who erred in evaluating Class X and XII answer sheets, the state government now plans to install biometric attendance machines at all board exam evaluation centres in the state to ensure that teachers remain present there throughout the scheduled time and do not “rush home.”

One of the main reasons of committing “major blunders” is teachers’ lapse in their assigned hours “who are always in a hurry to complete evaluation and reach home”. Thus, leading to errors amounting to more than 10 to 20 marks. This came up during the hearing of nearly 100 erring teachers by state Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on August 1.

“Installing biometric attendance machines at all evaluation centres came as a measure to check the practice by teachers of physically marking their attendance, which can be easily manipulated. To rule out this, an electronic biometric device where they will punch in and out while coming and leaving the evaluation centre has been planned to be implemented from next (year’s) board exams,” said Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) Chairman A J Shah.

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There are nearly 450-500 evaluation centres in Gujarat where nearly 20,000 teachers are employed as evaluators to check answer sheets of Class X and XII science and general stream subjects (commerce and humanities).

Recently, GSHSEB decided to name and shame over 6,500 erring teachers in the board’s monthly magazine ‘Shikshan Ane Parikshan’ for the months of August and September.

Last year, nearly 8,000 teachers were exposed after they wrongly added up marks while evaluating Class X and XII answer sheets, and were summoned at the board headquarters for a hearing session, so that they can be named and shamed by the board’s chairman personally, showing them their errors, besides imposing a fine on them.

But, when this proved to be a futile exercise, a hearing session chaired by the state education minister himself was introduced this year.

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At present, the hearing session of 3,000 erring teachers of Class X is in progress at GSHSEB’s Vadodara centre, which is the headquarters of the board’s secondary education. The hearing is expected to continue till the end of this month. For Class XII, the hearing would resume from August 27 in Gandhinagar, which is the headquarters of the board’s higher secondary education.

This year, number of erring teachers has reduced to 6,634 compared to 8,000 in 2017. Out of 6,634 teachers, 3,600 teachers “wrongly” evaluated answer sheets of Class XII general stream subjects, 3,000 teachers evaluated Class X answer sheets, and 34 checked Class XII science stream subjects.

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