Patna: The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) has decided to pay 90 per cent of remuneration to teachers engaged in evaluation of Intermediate exam answer papers.

The remaining 10 per cent of the amount will be paid after publication of results, as complaints about mistakes in evaluation work are often received from the examinees.

The board issued a letter to all district education officers (DEOs) in this connection. It said it has been observed that evaluators often commit mistakes during totalling or many questions remain unevaluated because of which students have to face problems.

Also, many candidates had on several occasions approached the high court with their plea after which the court, on several occasions, gave instructions to the board, for which it earned a bad name.

The letter sent by board exam controller to all DEOs mentions that evaluators will get 90 per cent of the remuneration once the evaluation process is completed and the process is checked by chief evaluator and assistant evaluators. The balance will be paid after scrutiny of copies.

The evaluation process began on March 5 and will run till March 11. Evaluation of Intermediate copies is taking place at 81 centres spread across the state. The board gives Rs 15 per copy for evaluation and in one day a teacher has to evaluate around 70 copies.

But the school examination board's decision has not gone well with the teacher's association. The Bihar Secondary Teachers Association has opposed the school examination board directive.

Abhishek Kumar, spokesperson for Secondary Teachers' Association, said: "We oppose the school examination board directive as on the one hand remuneration paid by school examination board is much lower than by other boards. Secondly, why should all teachers engaged in evaluation duty be victimised for the mistake of some teachers?"

The statement assumes importance as this year the board has reduced remuneration from Rs 21 to Rs 15 because of a change in examination pattern. This time the evaluators have to evaluate only 50 questions while the remaining questions comprise of objective questions which will be evaluated digitally. Abhishek had asked the school examination board to cancel its directive.

Sources said the board took the decision as on several occasions it had received complaints about mistakes in evaluation of Intermediate copies. Last year, more than eight lakh students failed in Intermediate examination after which many students knocked the doors of the high court with the plea that their copies were not properly evaluated.