WINDHOEK – The Ministry of Education has introduced an electronic marking (E-marking) system to replace the traditional paper and pencil with effect from the 2014 national examinations.
Cavin Nyambe, the Director of National Examinations and Assessment in the Ministry of Education explained that the E-marking system initiative was prompted by the Ministry of Education’s primary objective of improving the marking process.
E-marking will help make administrative matters faced by markers before, during and after marking much easier.
The new system, he said, will reduce stress on markers, as they will work more comfortably at a reasonable time.
Despite the fact that the system will be faster than the traditional marking method, it will still require concentration from the marker, he says.
Marking answer scripts is only one part of the entire process leading to the release of results, he added.
According to Nyambe the system is accurate and cannot be tampered with as each member of the marking team can only see and access a window’s tool bar that is associated with their position and responsibility in the marking team.
Nyambe added that the system has an important verification process that will stop the marker from marking if the mark scheme is not applied accordingly. “The margin of error per marker is fully under control when compared to the normal answer script marking,” Nyambe added.
In addition, the system will prevent biases in that each candidate’s answers are marked anonymously, he said.
“There is no way in which the chief marker, team leader or marker can link an answer script to a region, school or to an individual candidate.”
Nyambe further explained that the markers will be using a user name and password, and will only have access to the “block” which is a clip of the candidate’s answers which are assigned to him or her for marking, and the answer script of any one candidate will be marked by several markers.
“Some blocks are scored by two markers and arbitrated by the team leader in cases of differences. A marker cannot override a mark once committed as a final mark. The chief markers and team leaders are always in contact with the markers and the system has a mechanism of informing them on any activity that is not warranted during marking,” he stated.
Nyambe is of the view E-marking will reduce the numbers of markers used to save costs.
But he was quick to add the system is web based and works with computer technology, thus essential infrastructure is required and needs to be set up to implement it in all subjects.
“The chief markers, team leaders and markers were all given two to three days training and practice sessions before embarking on the new system.”
He said online training modules are available and will be used for training chief markers, team leaders and markers in future.
Furthermore, he added, the training will be a yearly process as new markers and new subjects will be taken on board.
By Patricia Heitha