Evaluation work to start in green zone districts today

LUCKNOW : Keeping in mind the safety of teachers the evaluation of UP board answer sheets will begin only in 20 districts that fall under the green zone from Tuesday, while evaluation work in orange and red zones will begin later, said deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma on Monday.

The green zone districts where evaluation work will begin from Tuesday are Barabanki, Kheri, Hathras, Maharajganj, Shahjahanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Balia, Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Deoria, Farukhabad, Fatehpur, Hamirpur, Kanpur dehat, Kushinagar, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Siddharthnagar, Sonbhadra and Amethi, he said.

Sharma said that the decision to start evaluation in the orange and red zones will be taken only after reviewing the progress of evaluation and assessing the requirements in the green zone.

The decision of not starting the evaluation process in the orange and red zone was taken after teachers belonging to Uttar Pradesh madhyamik shikshak sangh refused to take part in the process. An office-bearer of the sangh, RP Mishra said, “We cannot risk the lives of our colleagues amid Covid-19 outbreak that has claimed lives of more than 43 people and over 2650 were infected.”

Teachers association had threatened to stay away from evaluation of UP board answer sheets beginning from May 5. This decision was sent to secondary education department officials in a tizzy following which a meeting was held on Monday evening to reach a consensus to start evaluation in the green zone. Now evaluation will start in 63 centres of 20 green zone districts against 275 evaluation centres in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh where more than 1.46 lakh teachers were deployed to evaluate answer sheets of 5.6 million high school and intermediate examinees, said UP board secretary, Nina Srivastava.

“Teachers who are under medication with medical history have been exempted from evaluation work,” said Srivastava on Monday.She said district inspectors of schools (DIoS) were asked to take measures like frequent sanitisation of examination centre and to follow social distancing protocol.