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Tested in Britain, marked in
India
By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - A move to outsource the checking of
schoolchildren's examination papers to India has raised
the hackles of British commentators. In a bid
to overcome the shortage of teachers for checking
exam papers, Assessment and Qualifications
Alliance (AQA), the largest UK exam board
that conducts key tests such as the school
graduate's General Certificate of Secondary
Education (GCSE), has decided to send exam papers
for processing in India.
The AQA board
has entered into a 2 million pound (US$3.8
million) contract with Data and Research Services,
a UK-based data-processing outfit, which will send
to India for processing electronic versions of
360,000 scripts of eight GCSE subjects: biology,
French, geography, German, information and
communication technology, mathematics, science, and
Spanish.
The
reason for such a radical move
is the acute shortage of teachers to check exam
papers in the United Kingdom. But the real reason, say
British commentators, is the same as in any form
of outsourcing, be it directory inquiries, phone
banking, medical or legal documents: costs.
Examiners in Britain charge at least five times as
much as their Indian counterparts.
AQA
says there is much ado over nothing. "AQA is
committed to modernize the examination system by
using modern technology in ways that maintain and
improve quality and fairness," says Claire Ellis
of AQA. As part of these improvements, Ellis
explains, examination papers will be turned into
electronic images in the UK by Data and
Research-DRS-Services, AQA's e-marking partner.
Part of an image of a paper would then be sent by
e-mail to a data processor in India, where it would
be keyed into a computer and sent back to DRS.
"This move then will deliver an even
faster, more efficient and more reliable
examination service for candidates by using new
technology in the assessment of their work," she
says. "In all cases, the answers are keyed twice
to ensure accuracy. The answers are then
automatically marked by computer software
according to a marking key devised by AQA's senior
examiners. No marking is carried out overseas and
no examination papers are sent overseas. All
decisions about the acceptability of answers are
made by our senior examiners."
The AQA
sees it as a smart move that makes a lot of sense.
But livid British education experts call it "a
desperate act to hold a sinking system".
Politically correct British educators, however,
maintain that their objection to moving exam
papers to India has nothing to do with the issue
of jobs moving out of Britain. "On the contrary,"
says Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real
Education, a lobby group of parents and teachers,
"personally I am all for globalization if it
improves the exam system in the country."
"But our protests," adds John Dunford,
general secretary of the Secondary Heads
Association, the professional association for
leaders of secondary schools and colleges, "are
just to highlight the fact that in its pursuit to
upgrade the education system in the UK, the
government is refusing to implement the proposals
by experts for reforming exams.
"This
reveals the extent to which children in UK are
over-tested," says Dunford. "They have far too
many external examinations. Bright children take
over 100 exams during their time at school. The
problem is that we cannot find enough people to
mark it in this country because we have too many
exams. The government has failed to introduce
recommendations from a report of the chief
inspector of exams that would have reduced the
number of exams and relied more on teacher
assessment." Therefore, according to Dunford,
instead of moving exam papers out of the country,
the government should be reducing exams in the
first place.
Nick Seaton and his Campaign
for Real Education have other reasons to disparage
this "appalling" move. "We have had huge problems
with our exam system in the last few years, with
the papers getting lost and being marked wrongly.
The system is flawed, as getting markers is a huge
problem because teachers get sacked if they mark
rigorously."
AQA is playing down the fears
that the new system would be vulnerable to
glitches and delays, and blames the media for
misreporting that the papers would marked in
India. "Much of the furor is a result of
inaccurate reporting by the British media," says
Ellis. On the allegation that a January
consignment of papers sent to India for keying in
were returned late and with mistakes, Ellis says:
"When this process was used in January for 30,000
scripts for GCSE French and mathematics, no
problems or delays were experienced and the
marking was completed ahead of schedule."
Still, not everyone is convinced. "The
idea of reading and sending it overseas appears
demeaning," says Seaton. "We feel the whole thing
of splitting the answer papers and e-mailing them
halfway around the world is going to create more
problems rather than reduce them." But Graham
George of AQA points to the bright side: examiners
in Britain will be free to spend more time marking
longer answers. So, thanks to India, British
essays will flourish!
Indrajit
Basu is a
Kolkata-based equity analyst turned
journalist with more than 12
years of experience in business/finance and
technology journalism. Besides writing for Asia
Times Online, he also writes for US-based
publications, as well as IT companies.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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