GUWAHATI, Sept 20 - With the past misadventures at the back of its mind, the State�s education department has chalked out a fresh set of �mandatory� standard operation procedure (SOP) for conduct of the HSLC Examination to ensure that the exercise is a hassle-free one.
As part of the move, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) has asked heads of all examination and evaluation centres to raise the height of their boundary walls. The centres have been asked to complete the task by November 30 next, SEBA Secretary Kamal Jyoti Gogoi told The Assam Tribune, adding that some centres have already begun the construction works.
The government has also instructed installation of CCTV cameras at all the examination centres, distribution centres and evaluation centres. The principals of the institutions have been asked to closely monitor the footage during the conduct of the examination and also during the evaluation process.
Moreover, district-level supervision committees comprising an ADC, an ASP and the Inspector of School, are being formed and these committees will supervise the entire examination exercise. In fact, from this year, this district-level committee will recommend institutions for setting up evaluation centres. Also, the SEBA is in the process of enhancing the security features in the OMR answerscript.
�The entire front page of the answerscript will be an OMR sheet, with bar codes. It will contain the student�s roll number, but not his or her name. We are using high-end technology this time to ensure that the scanning is faster, enabling us to declare the results early. The OMR sheet is being prepared in such a way that there are almost no chances of anomalies and possibility of manipulation,� Gogoi said.
All the pages in the answerscript will also have separate blocks for the evaluators to enter the marks scored. The OMR sheet will have to be signed by the officer-in-charge of the centre, the invigilator, the examiner, the scrutiniser as well as the head examiner.
�The computer will be able to scan the OMR sheet and detect any anomaly in the awarded marks...say if more than the allotted marks is given, or if no marks were given for any particular question etc. Examiners will have to be given special training for evaluating the answerscript,� Gogoi said. The paper quality of the answerscripts will also be enhanced this year.
The number of zones has been brought down from 46 to 36 this time.
Moreover, the SEBA is planning to involve more college lecturers and senior principals as supervising officers (externals). �We are planning to involve people who are not associated with the secondary level students. Modules are being prepared for imparting training to officers-in-charge of the examination centres and invigilators,� the SEBA Secretary said.
The SEBA has often been facing flak for allegedly not being able to make the examination a hassle-free exercise. It may be recalled that in March last around 11,000 HSLC answerscripts of nine subjects belonging to students of fifteen districts were damaged in a fire at an evaluation centre in Jorhat. Some years back answerscripts kept at an evaluation centre were devoured by cows in Goalpara.
