KATHMANDU, March 29: Following multiple errors in the question papers of the ongoing final exams of Grade 10, the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) is planning to develop question banks of three subjects and implement the system from the next year.

At present, there is no question bank to select questions for a question paper for the Secondary Education Examinations (SEE), according to the OCE. Errors were found in 32 sets of question papers of all provinces during the four days of SEE exams being held in seven provinces with different question paper sets.

“We are preparing to develop question banks for three main compulsory subjects - Math, Science and English. For it, we have started collecting the models,” said Bishnu Prasad Adhikari, controller at the OCE. “We are planning to implement the question bank system from the next year,” he said.

Adhikari admitted that multiple errors occurred in the different question papers of the ongoing SEE exams. “We don't have question paper banks now. We assign about a dozen persons to prepare the questions. A group of 4-5 persons finalizes the final question sets. Then the question sets are typed and proof-read,” he said. “Others are not allowed to see the question papers because of secrecy and security of the question papers. That's why errors might have taken place,” he added.

The OCE is responsible for printing and distributing question papers with errors. “Such mistakes used to take place in the past years also. But people did not raise concerns over it as there were not enough media watch,” said the OCE officials. “It is a gradual process of improvement,” they claimed.

Controller Adhikari said, “We correct the questions in the exam halls, by writing on the black boards if the errors give unintended meanings,” he said. “However, general spelling errors are not corrected.”

The negligence of the National Examinations Board (NEB) has troubled the examinees enough, according to the stakeholders. A total of 475,003 students throughout the nation are taking the SEE which began from March 24 and will conclude on April 4.

Out of total SEE students, 238,558 are girls while 236,445 are boys, according to the NEB. Among them, the highest number is in Province 3 with 110,602 students while the lowest number is in Province 6 (Karnali) with 35,624 students.

Similarly, Province 1 has 83,818 students, Province 2 has 70,518, Province 4 (Gandaki) has 48,63, Province 5 has 76,983 anad Province 7 (Sudur Paschim) has 53,972 students appearing in the SEE exams.

According to the OCE, there are 1,969 exam centers set-up for the exams while 1,969 superintendents, 3,167 deputy superintendents and 29,535 security forces have been deputed to conduct the SEE exams across the country.

 
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