Hyderabad: Over 18 lakh Intermediate students are eagerly waiting for their results scheduled to be announced before April 25, but at spot evaluation centres correcting the answer scripts (the scores of which would play a crucial role in Eamcet ranks) there are lecturers who haven’t even completed their post-graduation.
A PG degree is a basic requirement to be an evaluator apart from two years of teaching experience. However, an ineffective Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) and complacent private junior colleges have led to several under-qualified teachers correcting the papers.
In fact, in the last one week alone BIE officials have caught four evaluators without the required qualification at two evaluation centres in the state.
While two evaluators caught at a centre in Toopran, Medak district were found to have not cleared even their M Sc Mathematics examination (mandatory for junior college lecturers teaching Maths), two others from Karimnagar were evaluating answer scripts without a proper degree in Physics.
The board officials said that it is impossible for them to find out the qualifications of the evaluators before they reach the camps as the certificate verification is done only after they sign in. “Senior lecturers in colleges are expected to be qualified to teach and evaluate. When we ask the colleges for qualified lecturers for evaluation, they are expected to send in deserving candidates’ list,” said an official from BIE. Officials feel that there could be more number of unqualified personnel at evaluation centres.
Sources claim that five per cent of the total 31,000 evaluators who reported at spot evaluation centres, were found to be under-qualified. “These evaluators would be from private junior colleges as such colleges do not relieve their qualified teachers for examination or evaluation duties. The qualified ones will be entrusted with the job of coaching the fresh batch of students for Eamcet and other competitive examinations during the summer vacation,” said a BIE official.
Officials said that due to a similar shortage of good evaluators in 2010, several answer sheets were found to be poorly evaluated. There were cases where students who got 50 per cent marks in the first evaluation got over 75 per cent in re-evaluation, said an official.
Observers say that the colleges which send unqualified candidates for evaluation duties should be penalised by the board. “For Eamcet, 25 per cent weightage is given for Intermediate marks. If the students’ answer scripts do not get evaluated thoroughly they would even lose a chance getting admission in engineering and pharmacy colleges,” said Madhusudan Reddy, secretary, government junior college lecturers’ association.