PESHAWAR, April 8: Many government school teachers are checking the papers of students who appeared in the recently-held secondary school certificate (SSC) examinations of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Peshawar, though they have no teaching experience of the relevant subjects, it is learnt.

“These days many teachers are checking papers of subjects in the board they have not taught in the schools. This could jeopardise the future of students, as an Urdu teacher checking English papers can’t do justice with his job,” sources in the elementary and secondary education department told Dawn.

The students are likely to suffer when irrelevant teachers would check their papers because they couldn’t do proper evaluation.

According to the set procedure of the BISE, Peshawar, the teachers desiring to perform duty of checking papers have to produce to the board administration a certificate issued by the principals of their schools concerning the subject they teach. Secondly, the certificates issued by the principals have to be verified by the district education officers (EDOs) and then forwarded to the board, the officials said.

Several principals and headmasters told Dawn that teachers of their schools were checking papers in the board without their certificate concerning the subjects they teach in the schools.

They said that how could a teacher check an English subject paper when he was teaching Urdu in the school. “Definitely, there will be injustice with the students in award of marks by such a teacher,” the educationists said. The teacher who was not subject specialist couldn’t judge the questions solved by the students, they said.

Usually, after qualifying the examinations the students go through tough competition for admission to professional colleges and could be deprived of admission to pre-medical or pre-engineering classes with a margin of few marks, they said. So the papers should be checked carefully by relevant teachers to avoid any mistake and injustice, they added.

The BISE administration has not taken the EDOs on board concerning selection of teachers for checking papers, an EDO wishing anonymity told Dawn. He said that teachers who had strong connections in the board were given the duty of checking papers irrespective of whether they knew the subject or not. Such teachers often seek help from paper guides to check papers.

Also, in some cases the incompetent teachers do not check the papers in detail rather award marks relying on style and length of the written material. Even the poor students get high marks with clean and neat writing, while brilliant students are deprived of good marks for not writing cleanly.

The EDO suggested that before checking any paper the board administration should get the paper solved by the checkers to ensure their fitness for the job.

Another official of the education department said that the pattern of setting essay-style papers was old and the government should encourage multiple choice questions (MCQs) papers, as there were minimum chances of mistakes in checking of such papers. He said that same questions in different order in MCQs papers would minimise the chances of cheating in examinations.

When contacted, Peshawar BISE chairman Dr Mohammad Shafi said that he had made certification from principals obligatory for the teachers checking papers. Mr Shafi said that he had called the meeting of EDOs well before commencement of the SSC examinations to ask them about teachers repeatedly performing paper checking duties in the board in violation of rules, but the EDOs were not cooperating with him to discourage the practice.

However, he said that this time he had set a condition that a teacher would not check more than 1,200 papers. “I have discouraged the trend of checking more papers by a single teacher,” he said.