BENGALURU: Pre-university college teachers who are evading the ongoing evaluation work of second year pre-university course will face criminal action. This is the warning given by the department to all eligible evaluators who have received evaluation orders and are not attending the same. In an SMS sent to the evaluators, the department stated, “Report to the evaluation work, failing which, criminal proceedings will be initiated under the Karnataka Education Act.”
Evaluation work resumed from March 25, and of the total 18,346 assistant evaluators, only 11,817 were present on day one. As on Wednesday, six per cent of the total 21,000 eligible evaluators were absent.
Those with health issues, fixed family engagements, and those who have children appearing for the second PU exams, have been exempted, with prior permission from the director of the PU department. However the rest have to report for evaluation work.
“Under the Karnataka Education Act and amendments brought to the act during 2018 examinations, there is a provision to initiate criminal action against those who skip evaluation work,” said a senior official of the department.As per data available from the department, at least three per cent of the evaluators have sought exemption for health-related reasons.
According to the deadline set by the department, the evaluation work has to be completed by the first week of April and the announcement of results by the second week of April.Difficulty in uploading marks onlineWith the department making it mandatory to enter marks online from this year, several teachers are finding it difficult due to lack of training.
Talking about this, a teacher said, “This is really difficult for us as we are not used to this system.”
Not just lack of training, teachers from some of the evaluation camps in Bengaluru have alleged that the systems are slow and the process is getting delayed. “In our centre, there are around 500 evaluators but only 15 computers to upload the marks,” added another teacher.
Teachers in dilemma
Teachers who have received a warning message from the department to take part in evaluation work are in trouble, as they have even received communication from the Election Commission to take part in election work. “Some of us are in a dilemma and don’t know which one to attend. We are unable to decide between the two,” said a teacher.