E-evaluation of Plus Two papers unlikely this year

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 9:

Contrary to the assurance given in the wake of large scale bungling in the manual evaluation last year, the Higher Education department of the Odisha government now appears to be in two minds about e-evaluation of annual Plus Two papers from this year, going by reliable sources in the department.

As per available information, the Higher Education department had sought the help of the Information Technology (IT) department to fix the modalities for e-evaluation, the agency to be picked up for this job and the conditions to be laid out before obtaining the Expression of Interest (EoI) from the concerned agency.

However, no suggestion has come from the IT department so far forcing the Higher Education to have second thoughts about initiating e evaluation this year. Officials of the department have no clues on the reason for such inordinate delay by the former either.

It may be mentioned that the principal secretary, Higher Education, had a meeting in this regard with the district collectors on the last day of the collectors’ conference here in the presence with the chief secretary.

Reliable sources said that the chief secretary is yet to review the Plus Two examination process.

Considering the fact that the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) had come in for heavy criticism for the poor and faulty evaluation of Plus two papers of around 3.25 lakh students last year, it is going be a tough job for it to evaluate examination papers manually this year since the number of students appearing in the annual examinations scheduled to begin from March has gone up by by as much as 75,000.