The Lahore Board has modified its examination process, stating that practical papers for 9th grade will now be e-marked.
Changes are being introduced in exams conducted under the Lahore Board, under which students taking 9th grade papers will also have practicals, along with e-marking.
Speaking on this, Lahore Board Secretary Rizwan Nazir said there were many complaints about mismanagement by invigilators (exam staff) during practicals; just as our paper marking happens at the center, now the theory portion of practical papers will also come to our centralized marking center and be checked there.
He said that the misuse of the 30 marks given to practical examiners was rampant; to end this, Education Minister Rana Sikandar and Muzammil Mahmood personally intervened and directed that it be stopped immediately. Now practicals will also have centralized marking, and we will install cameras in labs to prevent mismanagement there.
Rizwan Nazir further explained that regarding e-marking, there will be an ‘E-sheet’ for answers with designated spaces for each question; when these papers reach the board, we will scan them and divide them into sections. Examiners won’t need to come to any center—we’ll give them IDs, and they can check from home.
According to Rizwan Nazir, we will monitor them in real-time via cameras; instead of burdening one examiner with 100 papers, they will now get only specific questions from various answer copies (e.g., 50 or 10 questions). In the first annual exam of first-year across Punjab, the ICS paper will be on e-marking, and within the next 2-3 years, all our papers will shift to e-marking.
