Govt. puts off plan to provide separate scribes to students for public exams

Three days after the announcement that it would appoint volunteers, mostly students, as scribes during public exams, the School Education Department has decided to put its implementation on hold.

Sources in the department said the decision was made after backlash from disability rights organisations regarding the short time available to implement the announcement. “The move will be implemented, but not for this exam cycle,” an official said.

The previous announcement had noted that second-year students from B.Ed. colleges, District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs), arts and science colleges, and engineering colleges, as well as Illam Thedi Kalvi volunteers would be appointed as scribes for students with disabilities taking up the public exam. The training for the scribes would begin with the revision exam, said School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi.

According to the circular from the Directorate of Government Examinations, the process to identify volunteers from colleges began by January-end and training from February 2.

Noting the lack of time for training the scribes, various disability rights organisations had submitted petitions to the department.

President of the College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind welcomed the move and said though appointing separate scribes for students with disability was good, the time to train them was very short. “Starting from the upcoming academic year in June, let them [separate scribes] train with the students for the quarterly examinations. Why must visually impaired students suffer with scribes trained at a moment’s notice?” he asked.

He further said that students from Industrial Training Institutes should not be appointed as they too would have faced the exam recently. “A separate pool of citizens volunteering with other students from various colleges could be trained and maintained. This would help even candidates appearing for college and competitive exams,” he added.

Noting that the burden once again falls on teachers, Tamil Nadu Graduate Teachers’ Federation general secretary Patrick Raymond said the move to remove them from scribe duty was appreciated. “Teachers are already burdened with tasks related to exam work. This is only going to further our list of responsibilities,” he said.