Chennai: Class X and XII students who score centum in this year’s state board exams will be subjected to an additional layer of scrutiny as the govt has instructed officials to re-examine the papers at the respective evaluation offices and sign the answer sheets. The decision follows a review meeting held earlier this year, following reports of a large number of students from select exam centres in Cuddalore and Villupuram scoring centum in Chemistry and maths last year. Officials from the school education department said that every paper scoring centum generally goes through a chief examiner and marks verification officer, who will verify whether the student has been correctly graded and check totalling errors.”This time, camp officers in charge of the exam centres have been asked to recheck the papers again and sign them to show proof of multiple levels of scrutiny,” an official with the directorate of govt exams said, adding that for class X, the camp officers will be at the level of a school head and for class XII, it will be district/chief education officers.Director of govt exams, K Sasikala, however, said the dept was only strengthening its vigil, adhering to already existing practices, and denied that the move had any link to any centum controversy. “Correction has always been strict. We have advised officials to be more cautious and careful during evaluation to avoid errors,” she said.School heads, however, feel that the dept has to have chief examiners for every subject to tighten vigil. “The chief examiners who are appointed may have in-depth knowledge in only one subject. So, they will not be able to correctly assess if marks are awarded correctly. Earlier, there used to be super chief examiners (SCE), who used to be appointed for every subject. But the department did away with the rule several years ago. Merely asking camp officers to recheck and sign the papers won’t help much,” a head master said.
