450 ‘careless’ examiners of board papers to face action

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government has decided to initiate action against 450 school teachers responsible for serious discrepancies in evaluation of answer sheets in the state.

The education department will send show-cause notices to lecturers and masters responsible for negligence in checking board exam papers of Class 12 held in March, seeking explanation for lapses. “The notices will be dispatched next week, giving 21 days to reply. Thereafter, we will decide whether to impose minor or major penalty,” said a department official. In such cases, action can vary from stoppage of increments (minor penalty) to dismissal (major penalty).

The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), which conducts the exams for classes 10 and 12, had sent the names of these assessors – two-thirds of them are lecturers – to the department after discrepancies noticed during re-evaluation of answer sheets. The board, which noticed huge gaps in original scores and marks awarded during rechecking, had also got complaints about errors in evaluation from some students. Though the PSEB had sent the list of erring teachers about a month ago, the department officials were slow to react at first and started the process of drafting notices after secretary, school education, Krishan Kumar told the district education officers (DEOs) at a meeting that strict action is being contemplated against teachers for negligence.

Kumar said several teachers were not serious in conducting evaluation of answer sheets, taking them in a routine manner. “We have come across several instances where answers have been crossed out by assessors without checking or no marks have been awarded for some answers. In one case, there was a huge increase in scores from 13 to 53 during the paper re-evaluation. A number of students had to suffer mental torture and financial loss,” he told the district officials recently.

Kumar said several students had got copies of their answer sheets under the Right to Information Act and discovered negligence in checking. The department has sought suggestions from department officials and experts to suggest ways to curb such lapses.

EDUCATION DEPT TO ISSUE SHOWCAUSE NOTICES TO TEACHERS, WHO WILL HAVE TO REPLY IN 21 DAYS