There is an urgent need to shift from offline examination to computer based examination to mitigate and lower the mental stress and strains associated with the old systems.
It is a one time solution to many troubles associated with conducting major examinations and evaluations. A little investment over it is justified.
Hon’ble Chief Justice of India Shri D Y Chandrachud during constitution day address rightly said that we need to strengthen the online infrastructure.
The visionary people in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir need to be complimented for taking steps in making their offices paperless including civil secretariat, during “Darbar Move”, which started by Maharaja in 1872, which then was justified, keeping in view the population and means of communications.
Probably the practice involves spending crores of rupees of J & K in that bi-annual practice. Recently, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha launched key initiatives of National Education Policy-2020 in a paperless mode. Heads of the institutions should act promptly and establish infrastructure for computer based examinations in their respective institutions.
The arrival of new technologies including the AI and nanotechnology have steadily digitalized services, taking them to the online form and it is seen during pandemic that various institutions across globe have adapted Learning Management Systems.
This teaching, monitoring and evaluation system facilitates a balanced approach toward imparting knowledge and an easy grading of the candidates, saying goodbye to century old stressful paper based examinations.
Computer testing is an alternative to pen and paper and can be conducted online through the use of the internet or a computer-aided facility with a good power backup.
It is time-efficient and effective means of hosting large-scale online examinations concurrently and simultaneously. It enables educational institutions to evaluate candidates’ performance quickly irrespective of their geographical location/coordinates.
The ubiquitousness of several computer-based examination systems must encourage institutions to shift to online examinations. These platforms support a host of knowledge and application-based questions, enabling examiners to prepare a questionnaire with multiple question types, which range from MCQs, fill in the blanks, check boxes to short answers and long answers (nonetheless that need to be evaluated by the teacher separately).
National Testing Agencies (NTA) has been doing it meticulously even in J & K and the private sector need to be appreciated for establishing the infrastructure for such examinations.
On trial basis, the PG Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology Srinagar conducted suscessfully paperless test of B. tech Ist semester Engineering Physics students as per NEP 2020, which was coordinated by Dr. M Zubair and Dr Harkirat.
Though many hurdles of connectivity, the examination was concluded smoothly.
The automated reports generated is a comprehensive approach to a candidate’s performance, with a question-wise and section-wise summary of the attempt, time-taken and the difficulty level faced during examination.
Thus, it is beseeched that all educational institutions should establish infrastructure for sufficient computer systems with 3-tier high speed internet and powerful backups. These places can also be used for taking online classes during exigencies.
The author is teaching nanotechnology at NIT Srinagar, known for taking new initiatives, holding the Chair, PG Department of Physics.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.