How CBSE declared Board results in record time

NEW DELHI: Behind the declaration of this year’s CBSE Class X and Class XII board exam results in record time is a story of a herculean labour so far undocumented. Some 1.67 crore answer sheets were checked and the exercise completed within 16 days of the last exam held on April 4. The evaluation was an eight-layered process, with each paper handled by 12 evaluators.An army of over 1.5 lakh officials were involved in the process, including 1.1 lakh evaluators working at 3,500 centralised evaluation centres. medium69243575 TOI provides an inside view into this complex mechanism, starting from the 40% increase in evaluation centres to real-time monitoring that allowed the evaluation of an average of 5.6 lakh answer papers each day.In fact, on the day the social science and physical education copies were assessed, 18 lakh answer sheets were evaluated on a single day by 1.1 lakh evaluators.boxcontentEVALUATION ON FAST TRACK5.6 lakh answer papers checked everyday on an averageEach answer sheet handled by 12 evaluatorsChecking for each subject paper preceded by a mock evaluation40% increase in number of evaluation centresAccording to CBSE officials, atop the flowchart of a centralised evaluation centre is the chief nodal supervisor (CNS). In each centre, under the CNS are the head examiners (HE). Each HE, who is a subject expert, is assigned a particular paper for evaluation. Under each HE, there are four assistant head examiners (AHEs), one of whom is the AHE coordinator. Under every AHE are four evaluators, each of whom is assigned 25 answer scripts for evaluation. medium69247658 CBSE officials said a time schedule and evaluation matrix was prepared for the first time during the process of answer-sheet checking this year to ensure that allocation of papers to each evaluation centre remained dynamic and changed every day.“Two evaluators exchanged the answer sheets they assessed for cross verification, meaning 100 scripts verified among the four evaluators and 300 among the one head examiner (HE) and three assistant head examiners (AHEs),” said Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of examinations at CBSE.“The next step was to pass 100 evaluated copies each to the three coordinators under the AHE coordinator, who then uploaded the marks question-wise to be further cross-checked by their reporting AHE. The latter matched the marks against the printout taken after the evaluation but before submitting the marks on the TETRA (Theory Evaluation Trend Analysis) software. It was then passed on to the central server at the headquarters.” medium69247675The evaluation of each paper was preceded by a mock evaluation. This process started on March 12 with the sharing of an answer sheet with all evaluators in the 3,500 centres for mock evaluation. The assessment of the evaluators was then analysed to see if there was disparity in the marking and the reason for differences in marks given, if any, by different evaluators.“Apart from serving as training for the evaluators for the actual process, this also gained inputs for the marking scheme,” explained Bhardwaj. “Five new answer sheets were then given to the same set of evaluators to find out if the disparities had been resolved.”After the exam but before the evaluation, the answer sheets underwent an interesting journey. According to an official in CBSE’s secrecy department, the copies are collected and counted after the exams at the centre superintendent’s office, then packed and sealed. They are dispatched to the regional offices where the receiver hands over the packets to the chief secrecy officer. The secrecy cell then masks the identities (roll number and other details) in the answer sheets. After concealing the roll numbers, each answer sheet is assigned a fictitious number which it carries till completion of evaluation and final storage in the answer book cell. medium69239656“The IT department receives the marks assigned to the fictitious numbers,” disclosed Bhardwaj. “Some time later, probably 24 hours before the results are declared, the secrecy cell passes on the answer sheets codes, which are mapped by the IT department and the results accordingly compiled.”Untitled Carousel 67923087