MILLIONS of British students' exam papers are to be marked in India this summer in a bid to cut costs.
Exam boards will scan the papers electronically and then email them to be marked on the other side of the world.
The system has already been tested using Key Stage 3 exam papers.
Now it is to be expanded to include A-levels and GCSEs. The markers will mostly be English speakers in India, although some will be elsewhere.
Value
Ministers believe they can speed up the marking process and get better value for money.
A senior source at the Department for Children, Schools and Families revealed: "Online marking, in Britain or abroad, is a cheaper and more efficient system.
"It also allows exam boards to invest more money and resources into their appeals and re-marking systems, which ensure people know they have a fair result."
The privatised Edexcel board is leading the way with on-screen marking for three million papers—checking 60 per cent of all the answers pupils will provide for its exams this summer.
At OCR, on-screen marking is being used for the first time on a large scale this year after the Cambridge-based board entered into a partnership with computer firm RM.
Some 500,000 GCSE and A-level papers are to be processed electronically, while at AQA—the largest of the three boards—about 400,000 papers will be marked on-screen.
In Wales, the WJEC board is using on-screen marking for some exam papers in GCSE maths, ICT and AS-level computing.
But Lib Dem Shadow Schools Secretary David Laws said: "Some headteachers have expressed concerns to me about exam papers being marked overseas and have questioned whether this could be causing problems."
He has also written to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to demand to know what checks and balances will be put in place to ensure exams marked abroad are properly monitored.
Might as well move everything to India because it's cheaper? :l
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/0212...in_india.shtml
