UGC panel gets practical, evaluation sans pen, paper

The evaluation system in the country would soon be moving from the existing pen and paper mode to practical-based system.

An expert committee constituted by the University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended moving out of the current rote learning to a practical-based assessment method to evaluate the students at the higher education level.

To get opinion and also to educate stakeholders on the recommendations, the UGC had organised a workshop on “Evaluation Reforms in higher education institutions in India,” at the Maharani’s cluster university in Bengaluru on Monday.

Speaking at the event, Prof Rajnish Jain, secretary of UGC, said, “Currently, in the race to get higher marks, rote learning is prevalent. There is a need to come out of pen and paper mode of the examination system.”

“When we look at our ancient education institutions, the evaluation of students was based on the practical knowledge of students. In the same way, we need to bring a change in the system to march towards excellence. Higher education institutions play a key role in this transformation,” added
Jain.

Prof M K Sridhar, member of the committee to draft the New Education Policy highlighted on why the draft policy is silent about the evaluation system.

“If you don’t do policy for the future, you will revolve around the current problem. In the Draft New Education Policy, there is no chapter on evaluation and no use of the term called Evaluation. There is one chapter which talks about supporting students’ learning environment. It is a vision for a policy that is not just an evaluation or examination. It is the learning environment in the classroom and in the campus,” he said.

Prof Sridhar stressed the importance of moving out of the era of evaluation to assessment. “The current need is assessment and it has to happen not far away from students, but nearest to students. Our assessment has to be fed back to students and not judgemental to students. In the evaluation system, one should identify the strengths of the students,” he mentioned.

Before conducting the workshop in Bengaluru, UGC had organised similar workshops at Delhi and Hyderabad.