exam papers marked in India

kazzy

Here's one for us all to get our teeth into.I heard yesterday that Gcse and other exam papers are the latest 'thing' to be sent off to India.They will be marked out there and sent back.What is happening to this country of ours??? I get more and more annoyed every day.We all know why they are doing this because of the cost but what if an 'indian' cannot read or underastand the language ????????????? Please don't anybody dare to call me racist because I am not............We, as Brits,( if the role was reversed) would probably find it hard to mark an Indian students paper-cultural,language differences etc.
What do you all think???
I think I'll go and live in Spain or Australia.I'm getting thoroughly sick of this country .AARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! Rant over

ACID

Well Only People Capable Of Markign Papers Will Get It Right

Good Move Britain,

kazzy

ACID wrote:

Well Only People Capable Of Markign Papers Will Get It Right

Good Move Britain,

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Pottymouth_2

Or - dare I say it, they may do a better job that we are capable of doing here!

Anyone who saw the TV programme where a call centre manager from Norwich swapped places with a call centre employee from India might have a tempered view of this whole issue.

By the way - I am Indian, but consider myself British.

I also hate the "3" phone network customer service, but as far as "can Indians read and write English?" Well I would guess that the standard is at the very least equivalent - and the accent difference will not show on exam paper marking!

Just my opinion.

Potty

pin

kazzy wrote:

Here's one for us all to get our teeth into.I heard yesterday that Gcse and other exam papers are the latest 'thing' to be sent off to India.They will be marked out there and sent back.What is happening to this country of ours??? I get more and more annoyed every day.We all know why they are doing this because of the cost but what if an 'indian' cannot read or underastand the language ????????????? Please don't anybody dare to call me racist because I am not............We, as Brits,( if the role was reversed) would probably find it hard to mark an Indian students paper-cultural,language differences etc.
What do you all think???
I think I'll go and live in Spain or Australia.I'm getting thoroughly sick of this country .AARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! Rant over

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/25/nscho125.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/25/ixnewstop.html

I see it comes from the Torygraph.

Phonix

Here's one for us all to get our teeth into.I heard yesterday that Gcse and other exam papers are the latest 'thing' to be sent off to India.They will be marked out there and sent back.What is happening to this country of ours??? I get more and more annoyed every day.We all know why they are doing this because of the cost but what if an 'indian' cannot read or underastand the language ????????????? Please don't anybody dare to call me racist because I am not............We, as Brits,( if the role was reversed) would probably find it hard to mark an Indian students paper-cultural,language differences etc.
What do you all think???
I think I'll go and live in Spain or Australia.I'm getting

If it's done properly it's a great idea as it will enrich the knowledge economies of other countries whilst benefiting ours enabling our teachers to actually concentrate on teaching!



I know there are fears that they won't understand English properly etc, but with proper training this should be fine and I assure you standards are very high.

Besides I very much doubt they will do it for subjects like English, maths and physics are subjects that are very suitible to begin this process.

Fatboy_NSS

For the last couple years there have been problems getting results back on time as the exam boards haven't been able to find enough British examiners to meet the demand, so looking abroad is a sensible way of solving the problem. Subjects like French and German have no reason to be marked by a native English speaker anyway,

kazzy wrote:

what if an 'indian' cannot read or underastand the language ????????????? Please don't anybody dare to call me racist because I am not

If they cannot read or understand the language then they wouldn't be hired for the job. There are plenty of native Brits who can't read or write very well, would you rather have them marking exam papers than a native Indian with a PhD?

Amba_Gambla

To be honest, I'm not sure about this story at all -

under current rules, exam papers are not allowed to leave this country at all.

My parents are both big examiners and they have not been allowed to take papers out of the country

Helix

I thought the exam boards scanned them in and then they display certain questions on that markers computer screen. So the actual papers themselves don't leave the country. This is what a teacher told me anyway.

Also with the short course languages most of the questions are just multiple choice and you tick a box.

VeryTrying_2

kazzy wrote:

.We all know why they are doing this because of the cost but what if an 'indian' cannot read or underastand the language ?????????????

English is the language of many, if not most, cultured Indians. It is a language they speak at home, use in work, read in their newspapers, and use to communicate with other Indians who do not speak the same "Indian" language.

Those non-British Indians I have met have all spoken beautiful English, maybe with a slightly-difficult-to-understand accent, but their grammar, vocabulary and phraseology far surpasses the norm in the UK.

I don't know if this is still the case, but UK teachers used not to need passes in even English and Maths GCSE/'O' levels. Are they good enough to mark exam papers? Not necessarily, in my opinion.

Spendless

VeryTrying wrote:

I don't know if this is still the case, but UK teachers used not to need passes in even English and Maths GCSE/'O' levels. Are they good enough to mark exam papers? Not necessarily, in my opinion.

Maths I can't answer you but I do know that 2 years ago I worked with a girl who had a degree.

She wished to be a teacher but hadn't passed English Language GCSE (she'd passed English Lit). She was told that she needed this before applying to teacher training college, so was taking the exam whilst working at 2 part-time jobs.