The state school education department has issued guidelines for maintaining quality checks of exam answer booklets. While the department is still in the process of overhauling the evaluation policy in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, it has set up practices to ensure that continuous comprehensive evaluations (CCEs) for Std I to Std XII across the state are conducted in a proper manner.
As per guidelines released by the department this week, talukas and districts in the state are to seek groups of 10-15 teachers with subject proficiency to create outcome-wise question papers for half-yearly and final examinations, which are to be followed all across the taluka. In case the groups are not formed at the taluka levels, district-level groups have been asked to take charge.
After the exams, these examiners are to create a model answer paper to set the bar for correcting answer sheets. Teacher groups, however, are still getting used to the new regulations. “The instructions we received are still a bit confusing for educators since CCE has already been followed for the last 15 years and was only being used for Std I to Std VIII,” said Mahendra Ganpule, former head of the Maharashtra School Principals’ Association.
Apart from the ambiguity, the increased intervention has been a point of contention for teachers. In fact, the new regulations state that the schools which want to use their own question papers for exams are now to submit drafts for approval to the teacher groups concerned. “There is no need to bring in department officials while conducting the examination, as schools have been setting their own papers. Moreover, education managements have their schools in multiple districts and talukas and disturbing their uniformity makes it difficult. This takes a toll on the independence of teachers,” added Ganpule.
In addition to these rules, the state has also asked for parent involvement, wherein schools, on select days, are to loop in parents to show them the answer sheets of their child’s annual examination and resolve their concerns completely, while helping them understand the academic progress of their wards. As of now, the evaluation only focuses on pen and paper examinations and not other examination formats like verbal, practical, and experience-based tests.
