Examination Integrity Protocol Integrity
How Prayaas protects the integrity of every mock board. Paper transit, sealed envelopes, neutral centres, anonymised evaluator workflows, and the audit trail behind every cycle.
Why a public protocol
A neutral test centre means nothing if the paper itself can be compromised between the setter's desk and the examination room. A diagnostic report means nothing if the evaluator might recognise the student behind the script. An assessment platform that cannot describe how it protects the integrity of its own examination is, by definition, not credible.
This page documents the Prayaas Examination Integrity Protocol in the detail a sceptical principal or a journalist needs. Every step is observable; every step is logged. The protocol exists so that the score on the report can be defended in any conversation a parent has with their child's school, and so that the cycle itself can be audited end to end.
The Six Stages
From setter to script, six observable steps.
Paper sealing and transit
Approved papers are printed at a single secure facility, sealed in tamper-evident envelopes by staff with named handover, and transported to neutral centres on examination day. Envelopes carry a unique identifier and a tamper-seal number that is logged at every handover.
Neutral test centres
Centres are not coaching institutes and not the student's own school. Centres are selected for proximity, supervision quality, and absence of any commercial relationship with paper-prep brands. The list of centres is finalised at the start of each cycle and published to schools.
Trained invigilators
Invigilators are recruited from the partner-school network with cross-school assignment - no invigilator supervises students from their own school. Each centre runs a pre-cycle briefing covering the seating plan, identity verification, paper-opening protocol, and incident-reporting steps.
Sealed envelope opening
On examination day, the chief invigilator opens the sealed envelope at a defined time in the presence of a centre witness. The seal number is reconciled against the paper consignment log. Any seal anomaly halts the paper at that centre and triggers a reschedule.
Anonymised answer scripts
After the paper, scripts are collected, sealed, and labelled with a system-generated identifier - no student name on the paper used for evaluation. The mapping table from identifier to student lives in a separate, access-controlled system. Evaluators see only the identifier.
Audit trail
Every step is logged: paper printing, sealing, transit, centre handover, opening, collection, sealing for return, evaluation pickup, double evaluation, third-evaluator escalation, mark entry, and report release. The log is auditable end to end at any point in the cycle.
Four guiding principles.
No paper leak surface
Every step the paper takes is observed, sealed, and logged. The protocol is designed so that a leak would require at least three different actors at three different stages to fail simultaneously - and each failure would be visible to the audit trail.
No examiner-student relationship
Evaluators do not know the student's name, school, or any other identifying detail. They see only the script, the rubric, and the identifier. This removes any conscious or unconscious bias toward known students.
No centre-school overlap
A student does not sit the paper at their own school. An invigilator does not supervise students from their own school. This removes the most obvious local conflicts of interest.
No silent corrections
If a paper is found defective, a script is lost in transit, or any step in the protocol is breached, the affected students are notified and offered a documented remedy. Silent corrections are not acceptable in any cycle.
Reporting an integrity concern
If you observe or suspect any breach of this protocol - at a test centre, in a paper, in evaluation, or anywhere else in the cycle - we want to hear from you. Reports are reviewed by the Academic Lead within 48 hours and the response is documented as part of the cycle audit trail.
integrity@prayaassessments.comReports may be made anonymously. Documentation is helpful but not required.
Examination integrity is one pillar of the Prayaas methodology. The other three are question-paper QA, evaluator training and Inter-Rater Reliability, and the diagnostic tone discipline.
Read the full Prayaas methodology