The examination process for Plus Two is set for major reforms with the State Government on Thursday giving its approval to the proposals of Department of Higher Education in this regard.
As per the proposals, 200 Examination Management Hubs (EMHs) will be set up where question papers will be stored prior to the examination.
The reforms will be implemented in two phases and the first phase would be taken up in the current academic year.
Each hub will comprise four to five colleges and all other examination centres identified by the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) would be tagged to the EMHs.
A district-level committee comprising Collector, SP, deputy secretary of the respective zone and four college principals in the district would select colleges for formation of EMH on the basis of infrastructure, manpower and their proximity to the police station.
Centre-wise question paper packets will be prepared by the printing press as per requisition of CHSE. The strong room of the CHSE, where question packets will be kept before being transported to EMHs, would be declared as temporary treasury. Close circuit cameras (CCTVs) would be installed for surveillance of the strong room. All the EMHs would also be under CCTV surveillance.
Question papers shall be dispatched from the Council to the EMH two days before the examination and from EMH, question papers will be sent to other examination centres amid heavy security on the day of examination between 7 am and 9 am.
Most importantly, additional answer sheets will not be provided to examinees any more. The department has decided that one answer book of 32 pages will be provided to each student which would be stitched together with thread and not pinned. In the reformed system, every examination centre would have one superintendent and one deputy centre superintendent.
Both the officials will be responsible for safety of question papers and answer sheets. Besides, for evaluation of every 2,400 answer sheets, one chief examiner, one deputy chief examiner, 12 assistant examiners and two scrutinisers shall be appointed.
Doing away with the practice of keeping checked answer sheets in valuation centres for three months, the department will collect them from the centres soon after the valuation is over and keep those in CHSE office.
It was also decided that no clerical staff of CHSE would continue for more than two years in one assignment.
In March, the State Government had sought suggestions from people to streamline Plus II examination in the wake of the question paper leak this year.
Mihir Das, the officer-in-charge of State Performance Tracking Cell who is also the convenor of the six-member examination reforms committee, said in the second phase, the department will take up e-transfer of questions so that the manual system of transfer of question papers is totally done away with.
“In this system, questions would be transferred online to all the centres on the day of examination. The centre superintendent would be given a secret code at 8 am on the day of examination and using that code, he will access the questions,” said Das.
To implement e-transfer, each of the selected colleges will be asked to build up infrastructure within next five months.
E-transfer of question papers would be taken up in collaboration with the Odisha Knowledge Corporation Ltd (OKCL).
The department is also considering introducing multiple choice questions next year. Fifty per cent of questions would have multiple choice with the rest being long questions.