Karnataka teachers pay for marks lost

Karnataka8217;s teachers are paying for every mistake they committed in the SSLC answersheets.

Karnataka8217;s teachers are paying for every mistake they committed in the SSLC answersheets.

In a move that should put careless teachers on a warning, the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board KSEEB has penalised 1,124 teachers for their slip-ups in the evaluation of SSLC answersheets of March 2006 exams. Their names, where they work, etc., have been put out on the Board8217;s website to teach them a lesson.

These teachers are working in government, aided and private unaided schools and had participated in the answersheets8217; evaluation.

Either out of carelessness or lack of competence, they committed mistakes that affected the scores of students. Their mistakes, however, came to light when the Board took up retotalling of marks and revaluation of answersheets following requests from students.

The Board considered errors in totalling of marks, and where the difference between the marks scored by the candidate and marks awarded is six or more. Board Director TM Kumar told this newspaper that the extent of penalty depended on the gravity of the mistake committed.

8220;The errors include wrong-totalling resulting in a big difference in marks or undervaluation where the evaluators would have awarded marks less than those scored by

the student,8217;8217; he said. The penalty ranged between Rs 300 and Rs 2,000.

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The punishment does not end just with this. The evaluators who have committed grave errors will not be invited for evaluation work in April 2007.

8220;We cannot take chances with the career of students. During the training that we held for teachers, we highlighted the importance of proper evaluation but still mistakes occur. However, we will not consider people who have committed major mistakes,8217;8217; said Kumar.

The Director admitted that there is a shortage of teachers for evaluation work, and that was why the teachers who committed errors were still allowed for the evaluation work after levying a penalty. The teachers, he said, however, had been strictly warned that they would face stern disciplinary action if they repeated their mistakes in future.