Punjab: ‘On-screen’ marking to be used for evaluations

Announcing the initiative, education minister Harjot Singh Bains said that Punjab will become one of the first state boards in the country to adopt end-to-end digital evaluation

The state government is set to introduce a major reform in the evaluation process for board examinations, with the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) preparing to roll out an on-screen marking system for the March 2026 examinations.

This will mark a transformative shift in how answer sheets are assessed. (HT Photo)

Announcing the initiative, education minister Harjot Singh Bains said that Punjab will become one of the first state boards in the country to adopt end-to-end digital evaluation, marking a transformative shift in how answer sheets are assessed.

Sharing details of the project, Bains said, “This digital system will enable teachers to evaluate scanned answer sheets on computers, with marks calculated automatically by software, ensuring faster and more accurate results.”

The education minister further said that the system has already demonstrated its effectiveness. “The system has already proved its mettle by evaluating 23,000 answer sheets swiftly and accurately during the September 2025 supplementary examinations,” he stated. Encouraged by these exceptional outcomes, the Punjab School Education Board will implement On-Screen Marking (OSM) in one subject of the matriculation examination this year, with phased expansion in subsequent cycles, an official statement said. Explaining the technical safeguards, Bains said, “Each page of the newly designed answer sheet features a unique QR code, enabling secure scanning and seamless digital processing. Under the OSM system, answer sheets are scanned in a protected environment and uploaded to a centralised dashboard, where examiners evaluate them online with automated totalling, structured marking schemes and real-time progress monitoring.”