Taking forward the move to bring reforms in examinations and evaluation of Board of Secondary Education (BSE), the State School and Mass Education department on Thursday recorded a plethora of suggestions at a day- long brain storming session here and decided to take final decision after consultation with the experts.
“We have received very good suggestions at the symposium and would finalise the reform mechanisms for implementation in the 2014 HSC examinations only after taking the opinion of the experts,” said School and Mass Education Minster Rabi Narayan Nanda on the conclusion of the symposium.
There is a proposal to put in place the CBSE gradation system like A1, A2 and A3 by doing away with the existing division system. Other proposals include conduct of examination in same school having infrastructure and the students of high schools having no infrastructure should appear examinations in schools within 5km radius, preparing four sets of question papers with alternate numbers and penal action against teachers for irresponsible valuation of examination answer sheets, he said.
The symposium jointly organised by the BSE and the School and Mass Education department was attended by educationists, MlAs belonging to different political parties, teachers, students and media persons.
The symposium discussed issues relating to examination reforms like enrolment of students, fixation of examination centers, setting up of question papers for Class-X board examination, transportation of answer books, OMR sheets from the examination centers to the nodal points, valuation of answer books, introduction of a nine-point absolute grade in lieu of pass , fail and divisions. Also the discussion veered around rechecking of marks, fixation of accountability on teachers and related officials involved in valuation and setting of question papers for Class-X and common dates of examinations.
Sources said that stress was given on capacity building programmes for the evaluators, creation of a question bank and restructuring the administrative set up as per Gujurat State Education Board.
The meeting was attended by, among others, School and Mass Education Minster Nanda, Principal Secretary of the Department Usha Padhi, BJD MlA Amar Prasad Satapathy, BJP MlA and State president KV Singh Deo.