Use of AI can reduce risk of question leaks

Digital transformation and use of artificial intelligence in education system in Bangladesh can play a significant role in reducing risk of question paper leaks and teachers’ errors in marking answer scripts, international experts said.

Incidents of question paper leaks in public exams like PECE, JSC, SSC and HSC and equivalent levels in the last several years have created doubts in people’s mind about the credibility of exams as well as the standard of education.

“Use of AI can help in mitigating risk of question paper leak,” Global Director, Education Leadership, Microsoft Corporation, Alexa Joyce said while talking about the benefits of digital transformation and using AI in education.

“If you have paper-based exam approaches, you have to print questions in huge numbers and move the paper in secured way all over the country. And you run risk of students getting access to the paper, copying them and sharing it on the social media,” she said.

“It has happened in some countries,” she added.

She made the remarks while talking to this newspaper during the Asian Summit on Education and Skills (ASES) held in Bengaluru, capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, from September 22 to 24.

After public outcry following question leak in 2014, the education ministry formed a high power probe committee headed by then additional secretary Sohorab Hossain. The committee, in its report, recommended managing question paper using AI to avoid repeat of question leaks.  

A probe committee member said that the recommendation of using AI is still in consideration. 

“Question leak has stopped for the time being but we know this is not permanent. We are using improved technology and trying other ways to stop question leak,” Sohorab said while responding to whether the government will introduce AI in curbing question leaks.

At the Bengaluru summit, Alexa also said, “Digital transformation and AI can reduce teachers’ workload and save time in assessing scripts. It can help traditional multiple choice question exam system. It is very easy to give automated feedback in short time.”

“We are also seeing AI used to check whether someone has copied others’ work. You can collect the data handwritten on paper and scan it, and you can analyse the data easily,” she added.

Primary and Mass Education State Minister Zakir Hossen, who also led a Bangladeshi delegation at the summit, while talking to this newspaper said Bangladesh is adopting different technologies in the education sector.

Board officials said around 10-12 percent examinees have applied for reassessment of scripts of SSC and HSC exams under the Dhaka Education Board in the last three years.

Teachers need to asses papers of around 92.15 lakh students taking latest public exams.

Around 30.95 lakh students sat for latest PECE exams after class V, about 26.70 lakh students appeared for JSC exams after class VIII, 21.36 lakh took SSC exams after class X and 13.51 students took HSC exams after class XII.

Teachers also need to asses scripts of two school exams in a year of over 2.5 crore students.

Dhaka Education Board officials said that 57,555 examinees out of total 5,48,220 applied for reassessment of scripts of SSC exams in 2019 -- 10.50 percent of total examinees.

Officials said that they need to publish results of HSC and SSC within 60 days and publish results of JSC and PECE in less than 30 days.

So examiners need to hurry to check the papers -- sometimes causing errors.