Telangana: Board of Intermediate Education to tweak OMR sheet

Hyderabad: Learning from its bitter experiences of the past, the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) has decided to tweak the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet which is used in the examination work.

Starting next year, the marks allotted to a candidate would be mentioned thrice in form of numerical and in words by the evaluator on the OMR sheet. Earlier, the evaluators had to mention marks in numerical and words, only once.

Along with answer booklets, students appearing for the Intermediate Public Examinations (IPE) are provided OMR sheet for filling their hall ticket number and later the same sheet will be used in evaluation process.

In the results of IPE 2019, a student got zero in a language exam. Upon re-verifying the answer scripts, the candidate was found to have secured 99 marks. The error was a result of wrong bubbling of marks on the OMR sheet. To avoid these discrepancies, the Board has now decided to change the marks bubbling patterns on the OMR sheet. Henceforth,



bubbling of zero would be on top of numerical rather than at bottom on the OMR sheet.

Apart from making changes to OMR sheet, the Board has decided to adopt onscreen evaluation for evaluating answerscripts of intermediate public examinations. This new system will be put in place from 2021 year.

According to officials, about 10 to 12 evaluation centres would be established with the computer and server systems across the State.

The on-screen evaluation involves scanning of answer scripts of all students and storing them in the designated servers. The lecturers on evaluation work will be given access to these answer scripts through an ID and password at the evaluation centres.

“The onscreen evaluation will help in speeding up the evaluation process and also in compiling the marks correctly. It is being implemented in Osmania University and the Board is planning to adopt it for evaluation of IPE scheduled to be held in 2021,” said the BIE secretary, Syed Omer Jaleel.