Modern tools introduced to ensure transparency in exams: official

HARIPUR: Acting chairperson Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Abbottabad, Dr Shaista Irshad Khan Tareen, on Monday said that they had introduced new tools for the first time in Hazara division to ensure transparency in the examination system.

Sharing the details of initiatives during her surprise visit to different examination centres of Haripur, the official told The News that there were 1,22,522 female and male candidates appearing for 9th and 10th grades examination at 481 centres across the Hazara division.

For online vigilance of these centres, she said that the BISE had installed CCTV cameras in 415 centres while the installation of cameras in 66 centres was not feasible due to their remoteness but the local teams of inspectors and local administration would continue to monitor on daily basis.

She said that they had deputed volunteer students of Hazara, Haripur and Abbottabad universities in the examination centres to put an end to the most common complaints of favouritism by staff members, turning the cameras from the examination hall and unplugging cameras for facilitating the students with cheating.

“It is not possible for BISE to hire the services of the IT experts for each of the 415 centres so the help of these volunteers has added to the efforts making the ongoing examinations more transparent and fair”, she claimed. The official said that the tool for online monitoring was known as Online Examination Monitoring System (OEMS) for which the university volunteers were trained properly before sending them to the centres.

For monitoring the performance inspectors, the BISE Abbottabad introduced another mobile application called Examination Monitoring & Reporting Tool (EMRT).

As every inspector has the smartphone, the appointed persons were asked to log in to the EMRT soon after entering the examination hall that would help the BISE to monitor her/his movement while staying in the hall.

To a question, Dr Shaista said that whatever measures she had taken for online monitoring of examination halls and supervisory staff was part of a pilot project and would witness further improvement, leaving little space for use of unfair means and favouritism in the examination.