PESHAWAR: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Peshawar has decided to replace the manual paper marking with electronic one for matriculation and intermediate courses insisting that the digital transformation initiative will ensure transparency in the exam system as well as speedy results compilation.

E-marking will be introduced in the next higher secondary school certificate and secondary school certificate exams slated to be held in April and May respectively, according to chairman of the Peshawar BISE Prof Nasrullah Khan Yousafzai.

He told Dawn that the digital paper assessment was “more valid, reliable and cost-effective” compared with the manual one.

He said instead of travelling to the board premises, the examiners would mark English, Urdu, Physics and Chemistry papers at home.

Official says half of SSC, HSSC papers to be marked by examiners online; marking to be completely digital next year

Mr Yousafzai said half of the papers of higher secondary school certificate and secondary school certificate exams would be marked by examiners online using laptops and tablets, while paper marking would completely go digital next year.

Meanwhile, Peshawar BISE controller (examination) Arif Ali Khan told Dawn that the board digitally marked papers of the students of 80 schools last year under a pilot project.

“We have decided to shift to the digital form of paper marking after examining the pilot project’s results,” he said.

Mr Khan said the board had already trained 1,800 examiners in how to assess papers digitally. He said the ongoing training programme targeted around 5,000 teachers in different districts.

The controller said the board would collect papers from examination halls before scanning them on its premises and sending them to examiners for assessment.

He said the entire answer sheet won’t be examined by a single teacher and instead, scanned copies of questions and their answers would be shared with separate examiners online.

“The examiners, who will have access to our central digital system, will receive the second answer from the answer sheet after the marking of the first answer,” he said, adding that the system will generate real-time data.

Mr Khan said e-marking would minimise the discretion of the examiner for awarding marks to students.

He said different options would appear on the computer or tablet screen along with each answer asking the examiner whether the answer was correct or partially correct or had some mistakes.

“The examiner will click one of those options after examining the student’s answer. The system will award marks accordingly,” he said.

The controller said the examiners would be required to specify reason for declaring an answer incorrect or partially correct and thus, ensuring maximum transparency in the entire assessment exercise.

He said the board would choose examiners from among teachers with tablets or laptops and internet service, which were imperative for e-marking.

“Women teachers, who currently can’t travel to board premises for paper assessment, will also be engaged for e-marking,” he said.

Mr Khan said the board could provide electronic gadgets and the internet facility to examiners on its premises for paper checking. He said in case of objections, the initiative would enable student to check their respective answer sheets online.

“Digital paper marking will speed up compilation and announcement of exam results,” he said.

The controller said three teachers would be involved in the e-assessment exercise with the first marking the paper, the second randomly reviewing 20 per cent of the marked papers and the third being the head examiner to intervene where the need arose.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2023