In a new twist in the debate over outsourcing, about half a million exam papers from Britain’s main secondary school leaving certificate are to be graded in India to save money, The Daily Telegraph newspaper said on Monday.
The paper said that AQA, one of the three boards in charge of marking papers for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations this year, had signed a contract to scan about 500 000 of the papers for history, French, German and Italian and have them e-mailed to a firm in India.
The newspaper quoted a former employee of AQA as saying that a number of papers that had already been sent to India under the deal had been returned late, raising fears for the new operation.
”If there are delays when we send out a few thousand papers, what will happen in the summer, when half a million go out?” he was quoted as saying.
The exam board however was optimistic. ”We are not aware of any problems with the process and all papers have been returned on schedule,” an AQA spokesperson said.
The board added that the papers being outsourced for grading all required only one-word answers.
The Daily Telegraph said that the wages paid in India to the people who marked the exam papers were a fifth of what would have been paid in Britain. – Sapa-AFP