Examining the system

This does not mean that there is no need to improve our current examination system. In fact, we have now reached a point where there is an urgent need to completely revamp it if we want to prevent the current trickle of errors from becoming a torrent, since both the number of students and the number of courses being offered is rapidly increasing.

The examination process can be roughly divided into three stages: pre-examination, examination and post-examination. Most of the Indian universities are affiliating universities. The University of Pune (UoP), for instance, affiliates more than 325 colleges and 150 recognised institutions and has about 330,000 registered students.

Pre-examination
Each college has to send the list of its students who are taking the test and their certified subjects. These forms must reach the university’s examination branch within the specified time period so that the number of students testing for each subject at a particular centre can be calculated.

This is the first hurdle that the examination unit has to overcome: several students do not fill up the forms in time and the colleges do not send the list. In addition to the regular students, external students and students who have failed their earlier attempts also appear for the exams. Their forms are not necessarily received in time. Sometimes, students change their subjects/ courses, even after filling up their examination forms. As a result, the centres receive fewer question papers than required, exam schedules conflict etc.

The sheer numbers at every step of the process defy imagination. Every year, many colleges and institutes start new courses or add new divisions. Universities too add new courses every year. For example, UoP has added almost 60 new courses in the last three years. For each course, there are several subjects/ papers and for each of the subjects, three different question papers are set. In UoP, approximately 8,500 paper-setters set 25,500 papers. In fact, for ME course, taking into consideration various optional subjects, the university sets the question papers for 600 subjects.

There is another complexity that universities have to deal with: change of syllabus. For almost every subject, the papers are set as per the current syllabus as well as the old syllabus for the students who have failed.

A committee of the university chooses the paper-setters and examiners for each subject. These are usually teachers from affiliated colleges and recognised institutes of the university. However, none of their close relatives can be examinees for that subject. But there is no centralised database of all the teachers associated with the university, their experience and expertise. All these factors severely limit the pool of teachers from which a large number of paper-setters and examiners have to be selected year after year. In spite of the best efforts, the limited pool results in the same paper-setters/ examiners being selected repeatedly, which in turn may result in complacency and low quality work.

As mentioned earlier, three different question papers are set by three individuals for each subject. Each of the three paper-setters hands over two handwritten copies of his question paper in two sealed and labelled envelopes. The label includes the letter code assigned to him — A, B or C, the subject code and the subject name. One copy is for the printers and the other for the controller of examinations. All six envelopes are kept in the strong-room of the university.

Out of the three question papers, one is chosen randomly and sent — still in the sealed envelope — to the printing presses, which are selected very carefully. The printer prepares bundles of 25 and 50 question papers, sealing them with the proper labels: name of the subject, course name, code of the paper, year of examination and number of question papers in the bundle. These bundles are stored in the university strong-rooms till they are dispatched to the examination centres.

Thus, none of the three paper-setters know who’s question paper has been chosen. Nor do those working in the examination unit/ strong-room. If a paper-setter decides to copy verbatim a previous year’s paper, the university has no way of knowing it till after the students discover the fact.

Examination
The sealed question paper bundles received from the printing press are distributed to the various centres/ colleges four to five days before the day of examination. They are handed over to the principal of the college, who is the in-charge of the examination centre. The examination unit appoints senior supervisors and custodians for these centres. This number again is very large. About 2,000 senior supervisors are appointed in UoP. On the basis of the number and type of examinees at each centre, it receives financial assistance from the university to conduct the examination.

The in-charge at each college appoints invigilators from amongst its teaching and senior non-teaching staff. It is their responsibility to ensure that the examinations are conducted without any malpractices. For this, they are appropriately empowered. In addition, vigilance squads of senior teachers appointed by the university make surprise visits to the centres, reporting their observations to the university.

The seal of the question papers is broken 15 minutes before the exam starts, in the presence of the principal and the custodian. After the completion of the examination, the answer books are sealed and sent to the university exam centre within 24 hours.

Post-examination
Then begins the process of evaluation and result declaration. As per the 1994 Maharashtra University Act which is currently being followed, universities have to declare the results of any examination within 45 days of completion. For this, some universities like the UoP follow the Central Assessment Process (CAP). The evaluation of all the answer books for a particular examination, say First Year BA, is organised in one particular college called the CAP centre under the supervision of a CAP director. Examiners appointed to evaluate answer sheets for that examination work in that CAP centre. Accordingly, the several lakhs of answer books are sorted and transferred to the respective CAP centres.

Each answer book is masked, so that the examiner will not know the centre from where the answer book has come or the roll number of the student. Each examiner corrects a maximum of 60 papers per day. Among the corrected answer books, those which have marks below and above a predetermined range are corrected again by the moderators, who are generally senior and experienced teachers. Moderators also correct, at random, 10 per cent of the answer books which are within the specified range, informing the examiner if there are any problems in his correction.

Each corrected paper is checked by the staff to ensure that the marks are transferred for each question on to the front sheet and the totals are correct. Two independent data entry persons then feed these totals to the computer after the answer books are unmasked. These mark-sheets verified by the CAP director are then sent to the central examination unit along with the bundles of answer books, which are stored in the university godown for six months after the results are declared. Students who are not satisfied with their results can apply for re-verification of marks or re-evaluation of their answer books or both. A new set of examiners are chosen for re-evaluation.

Reforms
IT is obvious that the current examination system has become highly unwieldy due to the large number of students living in far-flung rural and urban areas and the increasing number of courses. It is also obvious that the university has to rely on the personal integrity and efficiency of thousands of personnel who are not under the direct control of a single authority. While the errors resulting from number-related chaos and confusion can be controlled by automation and other suitable measures, others like question paper leak resulting from lack of integrity are hard to contain despite reforms.

As mentioned, the examination system is in urgent need of a complete overhaul — a re-engineering which is complete, radical and rapid. But such a total reform is hard to achieve without bringing about a change in the examination paradigm itself, in terms of what exactly the current type of examination is testing — memory power as opposed to subject comprehension. The enormous weightage assigned to the final examination results in the subsequent career quests, to the exclusion of almost everything else, must also be mentioned. A paradigm shift will take some time. In the meantime, we can implement a number of short-term measures, which will reduce the most common errors, and long-term measures, which will make it more rational, efficient and accurate.

* In the short term, we need to reduce the number of steps at each level. This will be possible if the number of affiliated colleges and recognised institutes for each university is restricted to 100, as per the Kothari Commission report. By implication, a large number of our colleges need to be given autonomy. This will considerably reduce the university’s examination workload, as each college will conduct its own examinations.

* The second important step is to prepare computerised database of teachers in all affiliated colleges and recognised institutions, with details of the courses taught, years of teaching experience, previous participation in the examination process, incidences of malpractices if any etc. Such database will provide a larger selection pool of knowledgeable, experienced teachers with high integrity as paper setters/examiners.

* A better choice would be to prepare a sufficiently large question bank for each subject, covering the entire syllabus. This question bank should be updated regularly. The question paper then can be computer-generated from this bank.

* Question papers, which are sent a few days in advance to the affiliated colleges, could be stored in the strong-room of a local bank, to be opened a few minutes before the examination. In the current system, there is very little a university can do if an unethical college principal leaks the questions.

* In the long term, automation to all possible extents is the answer. The delivery of question papers today creates several problems for the university, and opportunities for malpractices, as the centres are located in distant places. To avoid this, the university should be able to send the question papers through a computer network, as suggested by the Central HRD Ministry recently.

This year, the UoP, in collaboration with the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd. (MKCL), did a mock trial, sending the question paper 15 minutes before the examination to a select few centres. After the paper was sent through the computer, the centre had to make copies of it. This means that all the centres will have to be equipped with a computer with printer, network connectivity and high-quality and high-speed photostat machine. But, despite the chosen centres having all these, the trial failed because some didn’t have reliable power supply. Thus, basic infrastructure improvement, particularly in the rural areas, has to precede widespread automation of the examination process.

* Another important reform has to be in the examination design. The exam should be designed to test the subject comprehension, not memory power. This will almost eliminate the possibility of copying. In addition, continuous internal assessment should form at least 50 per cent of the final grade, so that the final examination does not become the single crucial and defining event.

No system can be completely foolproof because human ingenuity is matchless and unsurpassed. Measures devised to minimise malpractices will meet counter-measures designed to circumvent them. But our examination system has been static for too long, it needs to become dynamic to make it foolproof and relevant to the contemporary needs.

And if a time comes when our educators teach because it is their life’s work besides being the source of their daily bread, and the pupils seek education as a means to personal and professional fulfilment, rather than as a mere ticket to a secure job, we may be able to completely do away with the examination system itself. This may sound like Utopia, but if we can dream it, we can make it happen. After all, such an education system did once exist in our gurukuls.

The writers teach at the University of Pune