LAHORE: Departmental action has been initiated against four super checkers held responsible for faulty marking in the Afia Naeem position case, and a decision has also been taken to permanently remove them from examination duty.
According to sources, action will be taken against all four super checkers under the PEEDA Act, while it has also been decided to include the names of the super checkers responsible for the faulty checking in the red list.
Two additional marks were added during the re-checking of Afia Naeem’s Tarjuma-tul-Quran paper, after which she secured third position in the Lahore Board.
Departmental action will be taken against all four super checkers over the matter of faulty paper checking.
The Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Act — commonly referred to as the PEEDA Act — is the province’s principal disciplinary statute for public servants. It provides for a graded set of penalties running from censure and withholding of increments through to reduction in rank, compulsory retirement, removal and dismissal from service.
Proceedings under the Act require the appointment of an inquiry officer or committee, the issuance of a charge sheet and statement of allegations, an opportunity for the accused official to reply and, where requested, a personal hearing. The safeguards mean that formal outcomes typically follow weeks rather than days after initiation.
Placement on a red list is a separate administrative consequence. It bars an official from future examination assignments — marking, super-checking, invigilation or centre supervision — without necessarily depending on the outcome of the disciplinary case.
Super checkers are the second tier of the marking system. Examiners mark answer scripts in the first instance; super checkers sample and verify a proportion of those scripts to confirm that the marking key has been applied consistently, that totals have been correctly carried forward and that no answer has been left unmarked.
The system exists precisely to catch the kind of error identified in this case. Where a re-check produces a change in marks large enough to alter a board position, it indicates a failure at both tiers — an error in the original marking and a failure to detect it at the verification stage.
The scrutiny of marking standards comes days before the MDCAT on September 20, which will be monitored through Safe City cameras in 15 cities.
For candidates, marks at the top of the scale are not merely symbolic. Board positions carry cash awards, scholarships and, in several institutions, admission weightage. A two-mark discrepancy at that level of the distribution can determine placement in a merit list for admission to medical, engineering or other competitive programmes, where cut-offs are frequently separated by fractions of a percentage point.
Education officials have repeatedly said that the re-checking facility available to candidates after the announcement of results is the principal safeguard against marking error, and that students who believe their result does not reflect their performance should apply within the prescribed deadline through their board’s official channels.
Leave a Reply