For the first time, Puducherry has been allotted a valuation centre for the correction of Class X and XII examination papers. The decision was communicated to the Education Department from Tamil Nadu on Friday.
Speaking to The Hindu , Director of Education E. Vallavan said, earlier the teachers in Puducherry were at a disadvantage while they were teaching the students, because many of them did not get an opportunity to correct papers; even the teachers who had gone for evaluating papers often did not get a chance to actually correct papers.
The Education Department had applied for the valuation centre earlier this academic year and they had made the decision recently.
The valuation centre here will be treated as a district correction centre. The Department is processing the directions given by the Tamil Nadu Department of Education on how to conduct the valuations, he said.
There have also been several changes made for the sake of ensuring the clean conduct of the examination. As a new rule, a standing flying squad has been appointed for each centre. In addition, the question papers are delivered to the examination centres by the Department under police protection.
There are a total of eight teams in Puducherry and two in Karaikal that have been entrusted with the duty of distributing the question papers.
Till last year, the centre supervisor would collect the papers and distribute them in his or her centre, he said.
There has also been a change in the way that the answer sheets are given. Each student has been given their own personalised answer sheets with their name and other details printed on the front sheet.
Even the seating arrangement has been determined from Chennai and been given to the Department as a plan, he said.
Once the students have completed the papers, they will be sealed by the invigilators in the classrooms and be stored in a strong room in the Education Department. The strong room has been given 24-hour police protection.
Another change that has been made is that the students are given 10 minutes exclusively for reading the paper, which will ensure that during the three hours of the examination there are no disturbances.
This year, the Department will be strictly enforcing the ban on cell phones for the invigilators and centre supervisors as well, he said.
On Monday, a total of 13,528 students, with 6091 boys and 7467 girls from 120 schools in Puducherry and Karaikal appeared for the Class XII examinations. For the examinations, a total of 26 centres in Puducherry and six in Karaikal were arranged. In Puducherry 11,479 students (5235 boys and 6244 girls) appeared and in Karaikal, 2,049 students – 856 boys and 1193 girls appeared.
