BEC to begin standardisation in e-marking
Larona Makhaiza | Tuesday December 20, 2022 15:13
Briefing the media earlier today, Director of Examinations Administration and Certification at BEC Dorcas Morake revealed that standardisation means BEC will have a marking scheme that conforms to the question papers of the exam and is set to be used throughout the marking of the exams.
“With e-marking, we are to start with standardisation and apply it throughout. The next step will have to be producing a marking scheme for the exam papers, and after producing the marking scheme, we will bring the senior officials who are well experienced to look at the answers in the marking scheme,” she said. Morake added that after some days, the examiners will be next in line to also look at the scheme against the questions and see if there are no answers left behind. She further said when all this is done that is when marking of the scripts can commence.
“The standardised marking scheme will then be used throughout the marking process, and all the candidates who get the answers correct will be the ones conforming to the standardised marking scheme,” she also indicated. In addition, she said that e-marking has made their job much easier, as it is fair, accurate, and mostly fast. To back this up, she revealed that already BEC has finished with the marking of five components. With e-marking, Morake said to expect to see fewer errors. She said that candidates who feel their scripts have not been marked fairly can contest by going to their centres, and fill the forms which the centres will then share with them. “For the private candidates, they can head straight to BEC, and get the forms, whereas private candidates can go on to the website and download the form and submit it online,” she said.
Before the start of the annual examinations, BEC had announced it will soon implement the process of e-marking, which was set to commence firstly with the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE). This was done by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development together with BEC so that the council follows suit and moves with the times to embark on digital transformation.
In other news, the Primary School Leaving Examination candidates can expect their results to be published by the end of the fourth week of December while Junior Certificate Examination candidates can expect theirs on the last week of January 2023. The BGCSE candidates will know their fate in the third week of February 2023.