JOIN US Atheeq, who visited the National Testing Service-India here addressed a gathering at CIIL. He added that evaluation is an essential component for every teacher. Teachers should understand the various aspects of evaluation in its entity so that they can set better questions. He also observed that nowhere in this country, this kind of work on evaluation system has been taking place, and definitely NTS-India has made a good start. He also lauded the work done by NTS team under the leadership of Prof Pon Subbiah who has taken this challenging task by continuously working in this field. Taking a look at the NTS-India website, Atheeq said the portal was very informative and appreciated the application software prepared by the NTS for instant construction of question paper, generating parallel forms. This mechanism of NTS was found very useful and user friendly.
NTS have to convince policy makers and experts in the field, so it needs to carry this idea to the universities, academician and people of different walks of life. In future, the country would be benefited from the initiatives of NTS team and all universities and colleges in India will accept it and take it forward, he said.
He further said that The examiners at the university level while setting questions may not be covering all aspects of evaluation. In this direction, more efforts are needed to build up bank of specialists in evaluation to teach the area in a systematic and formal manner.
Universities are also required to offer courses and degrees in evaluation. Prof Pon Subbiah, Head NTS explained the activities of CT & E and NTS. He also explained the steps taken by NTS for creating a comprehensive basis for developing tools of Evaluation. The NTS-India, a Central Scheme of MHRD, Government of India was initiated as a mission to evolve centralised mechanism to cater to the evaluation requirements of the country and also to advise the Government of India on academic auditing to account for the huge amount of public funds spent on education.