The Department of Government Examinations will directly send the answer scripts of the Class X and Plus-Two public examinations from this year.
The decision to not to utilise the services of the Department of Posts followed two instances last year in which Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examination answer scripts got lost/damaged during transit, official sources told The Hindu here on Wednesday.
While a couple of bundles of English Paper –II went missing during transit from a school at Ginjee in Villupuram district to an evaluation centre, a bundle of Tamil Paper-II was found damaged on a railway track near the Vridhachalam station.
Till now, the answer scripts were packaged after each examination and sent on the same day to the Department of Posts, which would transport them to a location given by the Department of Government Examinations.
From this year, the Department of Government Examinations would store the answer scripts till the examinations were over and then transport them to evaluation centres.
The Department of School Education officials in all districts who would be involved in the conduct of public examinations were briefed about the new procedures at a meeting held in Chennai on Tuesday.
An official who took part in the meeting said that the process of distributing question papers to the venues had also been changed.
‘Route Officer’
A new post of ‘Route Officer’ had been created this year. Several routes would be drawn from the custodian points to all examination venues. The route officers would deliver the question papers to the venues on the morning of the examination with police protection.
Coimbatore district had a total of ten custodian points from which the question papers would be sent to 90 public examination venues. A total of 36,971 candidates had enrolled for the Plus Two public examinations this year.
Till now, the Chief Examination Supervisor from each examination venue would collect question papers from the custodian points on the morning of the examination without any police protection. Access to the examination venues would also be strictly restricted this year.
Evaluation process The official said that evaluation centres were likely to be opened at almost all the 64 Educational Districts. Till now, these were restricted to one per revenue district. Coimbatore had two educational districts – Coimbatore and Pollachi.
The entire process of the examinations and evaluation had been streamlined this year following initiatives of former Director of School Education and present Director of Government Examinations K. Devarajan.