The Pandemic Year: Examining the Examination

One may not forget the thrill of many CBSE Class X Board aspirants when the news of the annulment of the CBSE Class X Examination broke in the media. This may have had an impact of the many petitions signed by the parents worrying about the health of their wards. The same hoopla was there when the dates of various Entrance Exams were declared by the Education Ministry last year.   The fuss though ended with a sigh of relief by both the aspirants and their parents and above all the authorities conducting the examinations. Examination happens to be an integral part of any learning process. Be it a practical, theory, report writing, Viva-voce or presentation, examining the learners is imperative to evaluate the effectiveness of education imparted and the learning happened. Apart from the other businesses the pandemic time has made the examination system very challenging especially when it comes to the pen and paper exam offline or be it a subjective exam online. The examining bodies have been wondering and investigating various methods to test the learners online which has become tough and challenging and questioning the validity of the process doesn’t matter how cautiously the exam has been conducted.

The Examination Policy has always been in question since ages as far as the education policy of the country is concerned. As this disastrous time had been a boon in many ways likewise it is so for the examination system. Plenty of platforms are available to test the demonstration of skills of the examinees still the authorities are up on the exploration of the most viable and robust examination system to be proctored remotely. The famous choices being the Learning Management System through Safe Browser,  Canvas, Google Proctored exam on their platform Kryterion’s Webassessor and so and so forth. Examining the students online is not a recently begun process. Several entrance exams are being conducted online since years, but conducting an exam online by remote proctoring is a dilemma and that too when the internet facility is not even across the country. For metros it may not be that arduous what it will be for the people in small towns and rural areas, where continuous internet connectivity is a big hassle. This calls for another alternative to the regular pen and paper examination.

The pandemic has been a blessing in a way that it has given preference to lesser preferred mode of assessing the student’s talent and ability. The alternatives to the regular examination identified and many universities in their professional courses have preferred these methods to be the assessment criteria for their students’ learning. The project-based assessments which may have the evaluation in the form of report evaluation, paper presentation, online presentation evaluation, PPT with Viva-Voce; simulation / models/prototypes evaluation and an E- Portfolio evaluation are some of the trending evaluation systems used as an alternative to the regular examination system. In a way our primordial methodology of examining the pupil’s learning has revamped because of the necessity and the crisis. Now the examinees can demonstrate their learning ability in a variety of ways that will be an actual examination of their prowess.

#GNIOT Institute of Management Studies (GIMS), Greater Noida is one such institution which the follows the pattern of online examination following the contemporary practices of evaluating through the practical learning of pupils and not just rote-way-learning. The students are assessed on their all-round performance through-out the semester through viva-voce, presentations, Flip Classes and projects along with the remotely monitored written examination. This gives every student an equal opportunity to demonstrate their ability and prove their calibre. 

Though, the hurdle still exists for the practical examinations in the controlled environment of a laboratory like in chemistry, physics, electronics, machines and many more. We are sure that the advancements in the technology will certainly come up with some of the alternative for this area of assessment too as the saying goes “Hope is the last thing ever lost”. Looking forward to have the solution of this crisis and emerge as a Winner.

Dr. Shalini Sharma,

Associate Professor and Area-Chair- Communication and Development,

GNIOT Institute of Management Studies, Greater Noida.