SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024
Marian Pinheiro
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown academic schedules in almost all educational institutions into confusion. This has resulted in a raging debate regarding the conduct of examinations, especially parents, seeking indefinite postponement, some for virtual examinations and some for no examinations. This appears to be the apt time to revisit the need for examination in the academic progress of students, especially in India.
The writer, having been involved in education for the past 4-5 decades, feels that this pandemic calls for a revisit to the popularly believed most important aspect of examination. The earliest comment on the same by a Central government commission is of relevance even today, “If we are to suggest one single reform in University Education, it should be that of examinations,”- Radha Krishnan Commission, 1948. The commission stated “Problem of examination is the most taxing problem of education. The unfortunate consequences of the present system of examinations are before our eyes. If we can solve it satisfactorily, there will be a great relief to the students and the very face of education will be different.”
The report of the Secondary Education Commission of India (1952-53) criticised the excess weightage given to the examination and mentioned in its report, “The educational system in our country was examination-ridden and that the dead weight of the examination (at the top level as well as throughout the system) tended to curb the teacher’s initiative, to stereotype the curriculum, to promote mechanical and lifeless methods of teaching, to discourage all spirit of experimentation and to place stress on wrong or unimportant things in education. It is, therefore, not surprising that any move for a change in the curriculum, teaching methods and evaluation practices should be met with resistance.” Examination also plays a negative role in the whole system of education.
In 1973 a UGC report mentioned that a large body of teachers and educational administrators is not yet fully conscious of the subjectivity, unreliability and lack of validity of the examinations as conducted today. An alternative system has not been clearly spelled out. The most common and relatively weighty reason given for avoiding or postponing examination reform is that if any university would give up external examinations, its degree would be devalued.
It is a generally accepted fact that the kind of examinations, the annual or the semester end examinations, as it exist in India is neither perfect nor objective and could be called nothing less than a necessary evil in the system. If one looks at the examination system its subjectivity and illogicality is all but visible. A student is taught for 90 hours in a semester on a particular subject, the student is not likely to spend over 60 hours in learning what has been taught, and at the examination he is expected to exhibit the knowledge so gained in just two to two and a half hours by answering specified questions. On the evaluation side the teacher is expected to condense what has been taught into ten or twelve questions. Most questions are stereotyped, anyone who reviews, say about ten sets of such question papers, can easily guess up to ninety per cent of these questions. The evaluation of the answer script of the student would be done in less than ten minutes. Then there are minimum and maximum marks, passing grades, grace marks and so on. In addition to the system being inherently defective there is a high percentage of subjectivity.
It’s time that teaching learning and evaluation is conducted as a single continuous process, which is what it is meant to be. Each unit of study should be evaluated in the classroom itself as part of the teaching learning process one to evaluate the student’s understanding and secondly to evaluate the teacher’s effectiveness in imparting the knowledge or the skill. A system of aggregation all these unitised evaluation should be considered as the students’ performance grade at the end of the year/semester. If teaching and evaluation go hand in hand, all these predicaments which the education system is facing would be absent and more importantly the student will not have to undergo, the unfathomable examination stress. The student will know where he stands on a day to day basis and will certainly put in efforts to improve them, which is of course is the purpose of education. With the advancement in digital and IT technology all these can be easily achieved if a proper system is put in place.
There is a fear, though genuine, that their grades and certificates will have less credibility. With a detailed system where the grades/marks are recorded with necessary documentary evidence of the same, the certificates, grades or marks will reveal more about the students’ capabilities and will certainly have better value or purpose. Each certificate will reveal the whole academic process and the performance of the student.
As regards the use of such certification for employment or for higher education It should be noted that any employer would be happy to know more about a candidate then just some numbers or grades. Sustenance in any employment will and should be certainly based on performance and not on degrees. Those who have acquired the capabilities in knowledge and skill will certainly outshine those who have dubious certificates or credit, which is certainly a welcome change. As regards higher education every course administrators have or should have their own system of evaluation of candidate’s capabilities by their own entrance exams or interview.
This pandemic has therefore given a golden opportunity to educational administrators, the governments and the universities to revamp their examination system to create a more credible system of student evaluation. Thre may not be a second chance for such reforms. The governments need to have the political will and the universities the academic courage to bring in these reforms.
(The Writer is a Professor of Law & Former Dean, Faculty of Law, Goa University)
