Online marking of exam papers draws flak from teachers’ front

The Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) has strongly condemned the Punjab School Education Board’s decision to conduct on-screen paper marking for the Supplementary Examination-2025. Instead of sending hard copies of the answer sheets to evaluation centres, the Board has ordered teachers to evaluate the papers online through their teacher IDs.

The DTF has demanded an immediate ban on this online evaluation method and called for the reinstatement of the traditional offline paper marking process.

DTF state president Vikramdev Singh said the Punjab School Education Board has instructed teachers to access and mark answer sheets online through their IDs. “Marking papers by viewing soft copies on a computer screen, rather than from hard copies, is not only difficult but also causes severe eye strain. Additionally, many teachers have reported technical issues while submitting marks, raising concerns with centre administrators,” he explained.

Vikramdev Singh added that the marks of the entire paper have to be submitted from the beginning, causing further delays when using the online system.

Teachers have also informed DTF leaders that they must enter the marks for each paper three separate times, which is a major waste of time. “As a result, marking and submitting the marks online takes about 40 to 45 minutes per paper. This process not only wastes valuable time, but also increases the risk of errors in marking. In such cases, the Punjab School Education Board will be responsible for tampering with the future of the students. While marking papers from hard copies is undoubtedly the work of the teachers, but the work of entering and submitting the marks online is not the work of the teachers but of the data entry operators,” said Ashwani Awasthi, DTF Amritsar head.

Furthermore, the Punjab School Education Board does not provide any remuneration to teachers for marking Class 8 papers, and the payment for Class 10 paper marking is minimal. In contrast, the Central Board offers significantly higher amounts for paper marking. In such a situation, the DTF said the exploitation of teachers must stop.