Satara Zilla Parishad CEO to probe DAS paper blackboard fiasco

PUNE: A fact-finding committee headed by Satara Zilla Parishad chief executive officer Sanjay Bhagwat has been constituted to investigate how many schools were compelled to use blackboards for writing the questions for the District Achievement Survey exam on Friday.
Bhagwat said the official order did not mention anything about using blackboards. Schools were expected to take printouts or photocopies of question papers and answer sheets.
The TOI had reported in its August 31, 2019, edition that teachers in many clusters wrote 45 to 60 questions of the exam on blackboards.It turned out to be a Herculean task, for both teachers as well as the students. All students were given OMR sheets to mark the answers, though.
“Prima facie we have come to know that these incidents have happened more in Kolhapur, may be because no papers were available due to the flood situation. We at no point had told them to write questions compulsorily on the blackboard. The question paper had 8-9 pages with many pictures and maps. I am wondering how these pictures and maps were drawn on blackboards. Schools get a lot of funds from school management committees, government and non-government organizations (NGO). If they can take money from Parents Teachers Association to conduct private talent search exams, why couldn’t they utilize it for this?” asked Bhagwat.
He said real-time feedback was received on a google link circulated to all schools. “We saw that most schools took printouts of the question paper. This was also our first time and we are critically analysing our data so that we can correct ourselves wherever we go wrong. We would be able to come out with the exact figures on Monday. In the meantime, I request all teachers to send me their feedback on the exam. If they have proof of cluster heads or others making it compulsory to write the questions on blackboards, please send it to me on my official email id,” said Bhagwat.
DAS was held for the first time under Shaikshanik Gunvatta Vikas Karyakram led by Pune divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaiskar. The examination was conducted in Pune, Sangli, Satara, Solapur and Kolhapur districts. In Satara district, the examination was conducted for classes III to X. In the rest of the districts, the examination was conducted for classes III to VIII.
For classes III to V, the examination was conducted in language, mathematics, and environmental studies, each having 15 marks. For classes VI to VIII, the examination was conducted in language, mathematics, science and social science. Each subject carried 15 marks.