The furore over the alleged neat profit that Anna University is making through revaluation has its roots elsewhere. A common complaint is that if teachers use answer keys it is surprising such errors occur during evaluation.
Teachers point fingers at systemic issues, such as lack of sufficient number of qualified faculty and poor response to request from the university to colleges to send teachers for paper valuation.
“It is true that we use answer keys to correct papers. It is now an accepted practice even in class XII answer paper correction. Only teachers with subject knowledge are allowed to correct papers,” says a teacher.
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According to him, each subject is headed by a chairman under whom there is a pool of faculty. “Teachers may have specialised in some subject, but they are never from another department. Since they specialise, the answer keys help,” he maintains. When colleges refuse to send faculty for evaluation the university takes the drastic step of withholding results. “But college managements use their good offices elsewhere and we have no choice but to release the results,” says a senior university professor on conditions of anonymity.
The university is forced to accept teachers with three years’ experience. For revaluation, teachers with at least five years of experience are roped in. The university charges Rs. 600 per paper for revaluation, but it is much lower than what Delhi University charges, says officials.