LAHORE: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) is going to digitalise the matriculation and intermediate examinations.

On Jan 31, 500 matriculation and intermediate students will take exams at the Lawrence Road examination hall as part of a pilot programme.

Up to 10 students from a school will take exams in physics, chemistry, biology, English and mathematics. Each paper will be divided into three categories: objective, short answer and essay. Three hours will be given to attempt the paper.

Under the project, the marking will be done digitally, as every sheet of paper will be scanned, and it will also have a QR code. The board will conduct the examinations by introducing a rubric assessment system.

BISE controller examination Irfan Ahmad told Dawn that the system would lessen the burden of the examiner and also check their performance.

He said the paper sheets would be first scanned and a QR code would be allotted and the sub examiner could not identify the paper of the student.

He said the system would free examiners from calculating the marks and papers.

Mr Ahmad added that the automated software would also ensure the checking of every question and allotting the marks, as no examiner could submit the paper without allocating marks and checking every question.

He said the examination system would be standardized and would promote independent marking.

He said now a head examiner has to check the marked paper again to know whether the sub-examiner has given proper marks to a question or not.

Mr Ahmad further said the BISE was planning to hold the 2023 annual examinations under the new system and they were holding a pilot project to check the response of the teachers and examiners.

“We are also holding the exam to check the working of the software and it would also provide them experience,” he said.

He said the board would also automate the exam fee payment and students would not have to approach the bank to submit vouchers; now they would only submit examination forms to the board.

He said all the systems would be made online, and they would also recheck the paper to fix any type of mismanagement as the scanned copy of the paper would also be available to them in the data.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2023