Examination time especially for students in schools or those in colleges, is a time to reflect and manage stress, induced due to anxiety and or fear due to expectations. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand that will remove the impact of stress on a student’s life. Controlling stress is an active process which means that one will have to take steps to limit its impact. Passive stress can possibly be controlled through suggestions and medicine. Active stress is something that is best avoided. But if active stress is induced through systemic or technology failures or due to paper leakages, then one needs to sit up and take note.
In this context, the move of MHRD to conduct all competitive examinations and some terminal examinations too through an online mode and centrally done by a national testing agency, is a most welcome move. This would entail that the competitive examinations like the National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination, NEET, Joint Entrance Examination Mains, JEE Mains and National Eligibility Test, NET that were previously conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education, CBSE would now be conducted by NTA. CMAT and GPAT examination too would be conducted by NTA. One could expect a professional approach that can aid transparency and accountability in the system. Same, when conducted for the children taking examinations from outside the country would be facilitation that is worth a cheer.
The recent past also saw a few examinations leaked and the flak that the same brought on. What then happens, when one of the World’s largest education system of Schools or higher education Institutions are pilloried in the media for all the wrong reasons? Credibility is the first casualty. The sacred thread that binds a student, his faith in examinations, and the fairness with which the process is conducted, can never be traded, whatever the reason be. If question papers are leaked, the children, all of impressionable ages, tend to feel cheated by the system, as they see the perpetrators benefiting either a small or a large group from amongst them, and gaining an unfair advantage over the others. Children and parents invest everything that they can muster, when the examinations are terminal. This must set the ball rolling for progressive reforms as has been done now.
There are some age old methods to prevent such occurrences like setting multiple papers by unrelated examiners from different places, code encrypting them, using special sealing technics which when broken, leave a trail, proactively substituting a paper at the hint of trouble and so on. However, the devil is in the detail. Leaks could occur from the paper setters themselves or in connivance with the coaching classes, where several provide their services, or the coding methods adopted, being broken into or even the examination managers. Setting multiple papers located at two to three locations and changing the paper sets in the last minute as a practice, judiciously avoiding paper setters and examiners who either coach at home or outside for a fee, using hexa-decimal mnemonics randomly generated to code and encrypt the papers, further barcoding and use of light sensitive paints that leave a tamper trail and effective use of technology could all mitigate the sore points of the system and help a child build confidence in the system. Of course, the flip side is training for paper setters, a great understanding of the art of paper setting, so that the level of difficulty of each of the paper that is set, is assuredly similar and paper setters with integrity and passion, doing the job. An intelligent data mining, aka question paper mining of previous ten years, using data aggregation can also generate a paper set that can mimic the actual. Coaching classes do something similar. Though this is technically not an unfair practice, it is a concern that it is possible to be done.
Another practice is the use of technology where paper sets reach various centres on the internet and making available an encrypted code a few minutes before the examination is to start. This means a robust internet and sufficient bandwidth would be a non-negotiable. Further high speed photo copying machines would be needed for print versions. Though this is a delivery side issue, it still does not preclude the earlier said measures. A larger reform would be to relook at the entire paradigm of examinations and assess if whole or a part of the process can be completely engaged as a proctored online event. Continuous assessments too could also be extended as an automated performance evaluator using data analytics. The entire system also calls for a reform in even the way curriculum is set and delivered in the class. The stress must be on measuring outcomes based on understanding than on the ability to rote learn.
A very innovative intervention appears to be to conduct examinations like NEET and JEE twice a year and allowing the students to choose the best of the performances of the two, apart from allowing him to exercise an option to appear again, if he were to drop out from one, due to some unfortunate occurrence. Obviously, the result processing would also be transparent and declaration would be timely.
To quote Johan Cruijff, one of the greatest Dutch football players ever: “Every advantage has a disadvantage”. This also is true for an online examination system. It certainly saves paper, saves time, saves money, and is more secure. However, a completely online examination is one where students will take the exam on their own device in their own time with nobody to check up on them, so one will have to alter questions to provide for this situation. Questions must be such as are not easily to be retrieved from books or the internet. Or one can add a timer to each question so there is no time to search for the answer. Open text questions as suggested by some experts are possible, but they don’t auto-grade, so self-assessment is made and that calls for more reforms. Further, an online exam system is a little bit more susceptible for fraud. Proctored exams must be the logical answer, where students are monitored in some way while taking the exam. Traditionally, proctored exams are done under direct supervision of the instructor or in a testing center and those options are not always feasible or practical. Sometimes test-takers connect to a proctor via webcam, and the proctor uses screen-sharing software to close out of any programs the exam candidate may not be allowed to use and also uses it to monitor the test-taker’s screen throughout the entirety of the examination. These interventions will call for more reforms.
Online tests with multiple choice questions could be what administrators, faculty, and the students may feel as solving all the blues thrown up by a need to create qualitative assessment methodologies. Asked for their test preference, most students pick multiple-choice tests. They like them because they think they’re easier. And they are. With a multiple-choice question, the answer is selected, not generated. Students also think they’re easier because they’re are used to multiple-choice questions that test recall, ask for definitions, or have answers that can be memorized without being all that well understood. Hence it is very necessary for the faculty to understand that the questions must be written to make students think. Every intervention has a flip side and that also needs to be addressed.
Some of you will be imagining CCTVs in examination halls and security – room – in – action – movie like invigilation rooms. You are not too far from reality. Technology today is enabling examination administrators, teachers, and recruiters to see, hear and even smell literally and metaphorically, the examination candidate sitting thousands of miles away. The Government enabling reforms and walking the extra mile, is not only welcome but pleasantly innovative too.