Full marks!

We have seen and heard about developed UK and USA outsourcing banking, insurance and other such service oriented work to India. But this comes as a complete shot out of the blue – British exam board is outsourcing marking of its test papers to India!  To help speed up assessment and cost cutting, City & Guilds, a leading vocational education organization has been sending thousands of papers to be marked by an education firm based in Bangalore as part of a pilot scheme. It had started outsourcing marking to MeritTrac as part of the scheme launched 18 months ago.

The agreement involves “functional skills” exams in reading, maths and ICT sat by children and adults, which are designed to assess the practical application of core skills in the workplace and life in general. City & Guilds insisted that rigorous training and quality checks have been put in place to maintain standards, with senior examiners double-checking a set proportion of papers.

Well, this is like coming a full circle. Under the rule of the British, we learnt English and now, we will assess their students. Sounds good but one wonders whether this will work as it has drawn a lot of criticism, with many stating that Indians are not familiar with the education system of Britain so how can they ‘mark’ the students? The experience with call centers has not been good with most stating that their issues almost never get resolved, so one wonders how this will fair. But if it does take off, it could become another major source of earning, after all, children and exams are conducted all around the world…. The world will then be our oyster; the key is to get this one right!