FOR decades, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has conducted the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Anglophone West African countries. From tens of thousands of candidates, it now decides the fate of millions of youths who are long for tertiary education. This steady increase in the number of youths writing the examination has continued to throw up bigger challenges to the council, cardinal amongst them, the assessment of candidates’ performances.

In Nigeria for instance, the body conducts examination in 37 different subjects with some of them having three components including multiple choice, essay and practical papers.

In the 2013 May/June WASCCE, 71, 722 examiners were engaged in marking and scoring of over 1.6 million candidates. Not only has the involvement of such large number of examiners entail huge financial commitment; it also has scoring lapses and sundry implications.

In fact, findings reveal that in manual marking and scoring of scripts, lots of errors are committed by examiners and they range from omissions, losses occasioned by script movements, mood of examiners at the point of marking just to mention a few.

These and many other factors, perhaps are what led the council to resort to the deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in most of its activities, the latest attempt being its gradual transiting from manual scripts marking to electronic marking (e-marking).

It was in realisation of ICT’s capacity to solving problems associated with manual marking of essay scripts that the council, in 2012 launched the e-marking portfolio on a trial scale.

The project, however, commenced with the 2013 Nov/Dec WASSCE diet, with Biology (practical paper) in Lagos. Building Construction was also subjected to e-marking. And with this development, two subjects were successfully marked and scored using e-marker.

From empirical observation, the council elected to tow this line having observed that e-marking system is gradually being enthroned as the standard practice in all developed nations due to its accuracy, efficiency and reliability.

The availability of Internet facilities and connectivity concerns, have also been identified as some of the likely factors that would hinder effective utilisation of e-marking nationwide.

However, some analysts are of the view that if the benefits of e-marking must be fully harnessed, converting other subjects to constrained questions and ensuring the proliferation of the marking centres across the country remains key.

“All an examiner is required to do to mark the e-dummy is to follow the prompt once the marking process commences. Afterwards, candidates’ scores are collated electronically and stored in the cloud.

“In this process, the examiner does not come in contact with the physical script of candidates as they are scanned and uploaded to the server or cloud. With this innovation the issue of scripts misplacement is totally erased. If a examiner wrongly marks the candidates’ script, the computer will shut him or her down and until that error is detected and resolved, the examiner would not have access to the scripts.

“Because we only have one centre at the moment, which is part of the challenge confronting the project, we communicated with our ICT partners and they came up with a WAEC customised modem. With this, examiners can access candidate’s scripts and mark such from the comfort of their homes. We also have a communication line through which an examiner can communicate with a senior examiner, should any issue arise,” Oforha further explained.

Deputy Registrar, WAEC Head Office, Dr. Olusanya Dacosta, who said that e-marker was primed to deliver accuracy and thoroughness, added that the system would ensure that “you are marking according to the guide. It has an in-built detector checking what you are doing, and as you are marking, the scores are going back to the cloud.


Source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/features/education/186374-amid-teething-problems-waec-s-pilot-e-marking-scheme-gets-stakeholders-nod


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