Vijayawada: The expert panel on AP Public Service Commission (APPSC) has suggested conducting all competitive examinations in offline mode. It further suggested that categorisation of all posts into technical and non-technical would ease the recruitment process.
The committee observed that adopting to Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) model for interviews in group I examination can bring transparency to the recruitment system. In its report submitted to the govt recently, the committee noted that transparency in answering OMR answer sheets or written examination answer sheets, conducting of impartial interviews, and curtailing malpractices in examinations are top three best practices being implemented by the BPSC.
“BPSC follows an anonymous process where candidates are assigned masked roll numbers at the time of the interview. The biodata form submitted to the board for conduct of the interview contains only the masked roll number and qualifications of the candidate, which ensure an unbiased assessment,” said the report.
Recruitment exams in Bihar are conducted in offline mode. Three sets of question papers are prepared for each exam and a set is selected at random 30 minutes prior to commencement of the examination. Similarly, question papers are printed within the answer booklet itself, with dedicated spaces provided for each question. Jammers are installed at examination centres to restrict any electronic signals.
The mains (descriptive) answer booklets are evaluated on-screen. “One evaluator is assigned to one question and he/she can see/evaluate only the question assigned to him/her. No evaluator can see questions and answers assigned to other evaluators. The commission employs an on-screen marks evaluation system. A dedicated evaluation lab with approximately 40 nodes is available at the commission, where examiners carry out the evaluation process.
The interview board chairman and members are also randomized at BPSC. The board members get to know about the interview board 15 minutes prior to the start of the interview. Interview board consists of one board member and other members are drawn from outside the state to ensure impartiality. Interview marks should generally range between 30% and 80% of the total interview marks. If this range is exceeded or undercut, reasons must be recorded by the board.
There are no interviews for class III, only written exams are conducted based on MCQs. The commission selected 2.5 lakhs teachers based on written examination only. BPSC also installs mobile jammers at all examination centres, biometric capture and facial recognition of candidates during examinations to check impersonation. It has also set up a central command and control centre at the commission for real time monitoring of the exam through CCTVs.
