The government will introduce a new system to evaluate the answer scripts of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams. It will introduce the concept of ‘model answers’ to remove discrimination in marking the papers. Sources said that most teachers do not understand the current system of exams. Most of them depend on guidebooks. They will now get the model answers from the education boards and evaluate the answer scripts accordingly, the sources added. This system would begin from the SSC exams this year on an experimental basis. But the final results will not be based on this evaluation. The SSC results would be published as usual. If the experiment is found to give better results, it would be implemented later.
Prof. Mahbubur Rahman, chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka, said: “Students and guardians have objected to the evaluation of answer scripts under the present system. We have found a big discrimination in marking answer scripts. Some students get a lot of marks even if they do not write properly, while others do not secure marks even  after writing answers properly. We believe the model answer system will remove such discrimination.”
Sources said that after holding workshops last September, eminent educationists of the country had directed the government to bring in changes to the evaluation of answer scripts.
Following their recommendations, several steps have been taken. For instance, when the examination in a subject is completed, the respective education board will call six trained head examiners for that particular subject. Three of them would write specimen answers to the questions. The other three would select three types of answers: excellent, moderate and poor. The board authority would then collect the answers and make several photocopies of it.
The model answers would then be distributed among the examiners along with the answer scripts. Each head examiner would have to evaluate 12 per cent of the answer scripts. The board authority would have to ensure this. After evaluating 12 per cent papers, the head examiner would have to submit a report. The Bangladesh Examination Development Unit (BEDU) has made this evaluation system.
“We asked for a list of head examiners from each education board. They sent us 12 head examiners, on average, in each subject. We trained them in seven batches for three days. Five batches have already completed their training,” BEDU expert Obadus Sattar Bhuiyan said.
“We have explained the problems of evaluating the answer scripts to the examiners and taught them how to give proper marks in practical classes. These head examiners would teach the other examiners about this before the papers are distributed,” he added.
The additional secretary of the Secondary and Higher Education Division of the education ministry, Chowdhury Mufat Ahmed, said: “We have identified various weaknesses in the evaluation of answer scripts. We have taken steps to improve them.”
He also said that they have increased the honorarium of the examiners, too. But along with the rewards, there would be punishments for slack attitide in checking the  papers, he warned.
This system will be introduced because many teachers cannot evaluate the answer scripts properly. There have been allegations that many of them do not evaluate the papers properly. At least 1,141 SSC examinees under the Barisal Board failed last year owing to the mistakes of the two head examiners.
On November 28 last year, education minister Nurul Islam Nahid had talked about the introduction of the new evaluation system. He had said that BEDU would publish the SSC exam results in 2017.