Students deceived in evaluation of scripts of public examinations

Masum BillahIn the Secondary School Certificate and Higher SSecondary Certificate examinations many students fail to obtain their desired grades and so apply for rechecking their examinations with the hope of getting better grades.Here they get cheated as their scripts are not rechecked, rather the numbers which are written on the cover page by the examiners are just recounted. No recheck takes
place in the real sense of the term. This year (2013) a record number of students
have  applied fro rechecking  the scripts of HSC examinations. This number is one-seventh of the total students who passed the HSC examination this year showing
a great vacuum of our script assessment system. A total of 7 lac 44 thousand 891 students
passed the HSC examination in 2013. Two lac 37 thousand 486 answer scripts of the examinees to be checked .
Out of twelve papers  two to eight papers have been challenged by the students. Most challenging scripts are Bengali and Chemistry. The boards have earned more than three and a half crore taka because of this cause. Students are charged Tk 150 for rechecking each paper. But the board has to spend only taka eight for doing the job. Barely 19 lac taka will be spent  for this purpose. What’s the justification of charging so much money remains unknown?
Dhaka education Board’s controller Wahiduzzaman  says regarding this issue, “ People desire that scripts will  be reexamined actually things are different. Numbers given on the scripts are only recounted. We cannot go beyond it. Until this act is charged they cannot get the examined scripts reexamined.”
The system of rechecking the examination scripts is there in the university examinations   where the examiners don’t put any number on the answer scripts. Two examiners check the scripts and if the marks given vary by 20 percent the script is rechecked by a third examiner. But in JSC , SSC or HSC examinations marks are given on the scripts . So, it cannot be rechecked on technical grounds.
When any script is challenged the boards monitor three things such as:
(i) Whether the circle has been filled in according to the given number.
(ii) Whether any question remains unmarked and
(iii) Whether the total summation of the marks is okay or not.
One researcher has found out that a great difference lies between students’ desire and reality in terms of assessing the scripts in public examinations.
This year 85 thousand 486 students have challenged their scripts surpassing all the previous records’. Last year (2012) 63 thousand 894 students wanted  to get one lac 81 thousand 871 answer scripts rechecked. This year in Dhaka Board 30 thousand  502 students challenged scripts. In Barisal Board this number was 4 thousand 172, in Chittagong Board 9 thousand  858,  Comilla Board  5 thousand 947, Dinajpur
Board 4 thousand  48 , Jessore Board10 thousand  170, Rajshahi Board 10 thousand 270
students, Sylhet Board 3 thousand 341 students, Madrasah Education Board 1 thousand
750 students, Technical Education Board 5 thousand  721 students, Diploma in Business under Dhaka Board100 students.
What might be the reasons for not properly checking the scripts? The probabilities are:
(i) Examining the scripts hastily. Within two months an examiner is to check several hundred scripts. All the examiners are heads of families who have to manage all of the family affairs as well as institutional works.
Shouldering family responsibilities and examining the board scripts at the same time don’t not allow them to give full concentration on judging the scripts judiciously. So, to prepare the results within two months just for cheap popularity must be avoided. It is not necessary as we cannot ensure timely university entrance neither we can ensure  timely passing out of the universities. Above all, the job market cannot ensure the employment of all the graduates. There is no reason to get the scripts checked so hastily. It was done in three months previously.
(ii) Examining the scripts by inexperienced teachers. Teachers of all kinds – very new, new, modern, old, trained and non-trained, liberal and hard-nut examine the scripts in their individual styles. There lies serious lack of uniformity among the teachers. Some reasonable head examiners and boards arrange an hour’s orientation session for all kinds of examiners to bring uniformity in checking the scripts before distributing them but a greater number of teachers don’t attend that orientation session and do not receive the guidelines. Still I remember some incidents of my life as a teacher and examiner. When I became the examiner of Dhaka Board in 1991 for the first time,  I was invited to attend such kind of orientation which was supposed to begin at 9.00 a.m. I reached the venue, an auditorium, at 8.30 a.m.but unfortunately  I found  nobody went there till 11.00 a.m. (neither board people nor teachers). At 12.00 some teachers started coming, not all. Then after some time the controller came and there was a hot exchange of words between the teachers and the head examiners as they did not get their honorarium bills for examining the scripts of the previous  year. After these hot words the head examiners started giving some orientation amid hue and cry which many people could not understand. Board authorities must take utmost care in this regard. I found the same  picture in Comilla board also. I found a huge number of teachers just took the scripts without participating in the orientation session.
(iii) No training is there on how to assess the scripts. In the  new education Policy it is said that teachers will have to be given training on how to assess the scripts. I found that one of my colleagues awarded 10 marks out of 10 in the descriptive type question in English. On the other hand, another colleague of the same department gave two, three or four marks agaionst the same type of answers. He commented ”I will see how  the students pass in English. Passing in English is not an easy task, it is really tough.’ This type of discrepancy is there in examining scripts. When this sort of thing happens in this small sphere, how worse are things at the national level can be imagined easily.
The controllers of boards showed many proofs on how irresponsibly many examiners  checked the scripts. Many got the circles filled in by their wives or even maid-servants who committed serious blunders. Many filled in the circle wrongly such as circles filled in 29 instead of 92.
Many irresponsible examiners leave the country and have tours of our neighboring country without submitting the scripts to the authorities. Many examiners lose the scripts in the bus, launch, and train or in relative’s houses. Board authorities are also clever enough. They direct the schools and colleges to submit the results of test examinations. In case of the missing scripts, they use the marks of test examination as the marks of the final examination.
Again the controllers and the chairmen of the boards are appointed mostly on political
considerations. They try to show their performance or by showing more students pass the examination. Even they direct the examiners to give marks even if they find scripts blank. These are the things that happen frequently in assessing scripts of public examinations and the students suffer. Examining scripts is a matter of serious judgment which cannot be done by any kind of teacher. Without training and experience it cannot be done. Board authorities must take utmost care in getting this sacred work done properly.
(Masum Billah is the Program Manager BRAC Education Programme and Vice- President: Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA). Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com)