Now Students can get their Board Papers Rechecked, says Maharashtra Board

The Maharashtra Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has announced a scheme where Secondary School Certificate (SSC, std X) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC, std XII) students can re-evaluate their board examination answer sheets.

The present scheme allows students only to re-evaluate their marks for calculative errors. But, under the new scheme, students will be able to apply for complete rechecking of answer sheets. The scheme will be implemented from 2013-14 board examinations.

A five-member committee will be formed under the guidance of the chief moderator to re-evaluate the answer sheets.

Board chairman Sarjerao Gaikwad said that only those students who apply for duplicate copies of their answer sheets can avail of this facility. The scheme of issuing duplicate answer sheets was introduced last year.

Most boards in the country had introduced this scheme but later discontinued it. "However, we will make sure that this does not happen in Maharashtra and hence we have introduced some stringent rules. Students will have to get a duplicate copy of their answer sheets from their respective boards. The application for rechecking must be submitted to the board within five days of the result. For subjective answers, only an increase of 10% or more will be awarded. A written consent of re-evaluation from a school or college teacher will also be necessary" says the chairman.

In the present system, evaluators are only allowed to recount marks and correct calculative errors and not change the marks awarded in the answer papers. In the current system, if a student has attempted a 'fill in the blank' question correctly, yet the evaluator has marked the answer incorrect, this error remains unchanged while evaluation. However, the new scheme will allow the evaluator to correct these mistakes.

Students will be charged Rs 300 per subject as application fee for re-evaluation of papers. Availing a duplicate copy will cost an additional Rs 400 per paper. Students are advised to retrieve a duplicate copy of their answer sheet from their respective division and show it to their subject teacher in school or college. If the teacher gives a go ahead for rechecking only then they should submit the application.

The 13 lakh students who appeared for HSC exam in February-March this year, over 7,000 students applied for rechecking. Close to 4,500 SSC students of the 16 lakh also applied for rechecking. "Only about 20 genuine cases were found of the total 12,000 applications.