Evaluation of ICSE and ISC answer scripts will be decentralised this year as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus.

Examiners will be allowed to evaluate the answer scripts at home, the council said on Wednesday.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, which conducts the ICSE and ISC exams, wrote to the examiners of both board exams about the “revised procedure for evaluation of answer scripts”, keeping in mind the “health and safety” of the examiners.

“In view of the coronavirus spreading across the country and with much uncertainty and speculation in the air, the council has decided to review its policy of centralised evaluation, keeping in mind the health and safety of all our examiners, which is of utmost priority,” states the letter from Gerry Arathoon, the chief executive and secretary of the council.

“The evaluation will be decentralised and the examiners will be required to mark the answer scripts at their respective residences,” the letter said.

The examiners will, however, have to go to the evaluation centre to discuss the marking scheme and collect the answer scripts on the first day and later upload the marks and submit the corrected answer scripts.

The decentralisation of the evaluation process is to be implemented with immediate effect, the letter states. It will be followed for all ICSE papers.

Evaluation of ICSE papers is scheduled to begin on Thursday and is expected to be over by April 28. For ISC, the revised procedure will be applicable to subjects such as chemistry paper 1, fashion designing paper 1, history, physical education paper 1, computer science paper 1, electricity and electronics, geometrical & mechanical drawing, geometrical & building drawing, sociology, biology paper 1, geography paper 1, business studies, home science paper 1, elective English, psychology, art papers 1 to 5, biotechnology paper 1, commerce, mathematics, mass media and communication.

The evaluation of ISC answer scripts began on February 24 and is expected to be over by April 20. For some subjects, only a couple of days of evaluation are left.

The chief examiner/co-chief examiner/examiner coordinator of an evaluation centre will meet all the examiners for a short while on the first day of evaluation to discuss the finalised marking scheme, evaluate dummy scripts, give necessary instructions to the examiners and hand over the boxes of answer scripts, according to the letter. It’ll be the examiner’s responsibility to safely transport the scripts home.

“If any examiner is absent, the answer scripts apportioned to that examiner should be reapportioned by the chief examiner, co-chief examiner/ examiner coordinator amongst the present examiners on the first day itself and a record of the same should be kept by them,” the letter reads.

On the last day of evaluation, all examiners have to take the corrected answer scripts “safely, securely packed” to the evaluation centre and hand them over to the chief examiner/co-chief examiner/examiner coordinator, a council official said quoting the letter.

“All other confidential material given to the examiner ie. question paper, marking scheme, etc should be submitted as well,” the letter states.

The chief examiner/co-chief examiner/examiner coordinator will check all the boxes of marked scripts and hand them over to the designated courier.