Higher Secondary examinees to get OMR copies: Council to upload answer keys, too
Telegraph | 8 June 2025
Class XII students under the state higher secondary board who appear for their third-semester exams in September will be allowed to either keep copies of their OMR answer sheets or access them on the higher secondary council website.
In a move to make the evaluation process transparent, the state HS council will also upload the final answer keys used to assess the multiple-choice questions.
Council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said on Friday that they have called a meeting next week to decide whether to hand the OMRs to the candidates or upload copies on their website.
Transparency bid
The push for transparency comes amid an ongoing controversy over alleged irregularities in the evaluation of answer scripts for schoolteacher recruitment, which resulted in the Supreme Court dismissing 25,753 teachers and staff from government-aided secondary and higher secondary schools.
The school service commission has been accused of destroying copies of OMR sheets of the 2016 selection tests, which were the basis of the appointments later terminated by the apex court.
“Transparency in the evaluation process is important. If students can access their OMR sheets and the answer keys, they will know how they were assessed,” Bhattacharya said. “This way, they won’t need to file RTI applications to get such details.”
The SSC has also decided that the candidates who write their selection tests, tentatively scheduled in the first week of September, for the appointment of schoolteachers, can keep a copy of their OMRs.
The SSC will also upload the final answer keys.
Semester system
Last year, the council split the plus-II exams into four semesters — first and second for Class XI, and third and fourth for XII.
The first and third semester exams are MCQ-based and written on OMR sheets. The second and fourth semester exams have short and descriptive questions.
Schools conduct the first and second semester exams, and the council conducts the third and fourth semester ones.
“We could give the students carbon copies of the OMR sheets. If scanned copies are to be uploaded, the students will be given a login ID to access the OMRs. They can tally their answers with the final answer key,” Bhattacharya said.
While most competitive exams follow this practice, this will be the first time school-level examinees will have access to their OMRs.
Recruitment row
Swapan Mandal, general secretary of the Bengal Teachers’ and Employees’ Association, said: “The state government, which has drawn flak following irregularities in teacher recruitments, has been forced to take the decision. We welcome the move. It is exemplary.”
The allegations have delayed school recruitment by nearly a decade.
Complaints of irregularities have also surfaced in the appointment of primary teachers (of Classes I to V).
The primary education board has been accused of destroying OMR copies of the 2015 Teachers Eligibility Test (TET).
The fate of 36,000 primary teachers hangs in the balance at Calcutta High Court, which is hearing a barrage of pleas against alleged malpractices in the hiring process.
The primary board has been giving copies of OMRs since the 2022 TET.