The Question Bank system provides a solution to several issues. When a question bank providing a category-wise pool of questions is provided to the students at the beginning of an academic year, the element of secrecy vanishes.
The NDA government has rightly appointed a committee under the leadership of Koppillil Radhakrishnan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to “make recommendations on reforming the mechanism of the examination process and improving data security protocols and the structure and functioning of NTA (National Testing Agency)”. It was also courageous of the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to bite the bullet and unhesitatingly cancel the UGC-NET examination after investigations unearthed some wrongdoings.
The obvious question is: “What next?” The answer lies in the NEP 2020. It clearly “aims to transform the nature of learning assessments from one that is summative and primarily tests rote memorisation skills to one that is: More regular and formative, more competency-based, and one that tests higher-order skills, such as analysis, critical thinking, and conceptual clarity.” Critics must note that it is already a part of the agenda of the Ministry of Education.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, in its 336th report in 2021 had also taken note of some key challenges in the conduct of public examinations. It stated that “even after several decades, many State Universities regularly fail smooth and flawless conduct of examinations. Instances like question paper leak, administering a wrong question paper, confusion about seating arrangements and examination centre, rampant cases of copying, framing questions that are out of syllabi, wrong examiners being appointed for assessment and student-examiner nexus etc are still not uncommon.” Its report also said that “the Committee recommends that the parameter of the Institution’s exam management competency be also considered as a mandatory norm towards consideration of accreditation. The NAAC and NBA should award marks/grades to such universities/institutes who conduct examinations smoothly.” The recommendation to look into the “experiments like the Question Bank system” besides incentivising “adoption of complete digitisation of the examination process by institutes/universities to ensure fair and timely conduct of examination and declaration of results, amongst others” is noteworthy.
The Question Bank system provides a solution to several issues. When a question bank providing a category-wise pool of questions is provided to the students at the beginning of an academic year, the element of secrecy vanishes. Professional wrongdoers out to leak a question paper also lose their “business”. With likely questions already in the public, all that is left to the agencies conducting examinations is a draw of specific serial numbers of questions to be made a part of the question paper, limited to a specific examination centre. Rules should provide for total rejection of the answer sheet when an examinee attempts questions not earmarked for his respective examination centre. When public examinations are conducted through this Question Bank system, issues like question paper leak, framing of out-of-syllabus questions or administering a wrong question paper, etc, can be eliminated and foul-play or cheating tendencies nipped in the bud.
The Question Bank system potentially provides a one-stop solution to many challenges. It curbs the tendency of preparing for specific questions, ignoring the need to grasp a subject holistically. Also, with the question bank already made public, no teacher can enjoy the liberty of not covering portions of the syllabus. If one chooses to have questions with different chronological number/s for every other student; the question of copying and related unfair practices may not arise at all.
The larger question is of the woefully inadequate supply of human resources to provide leadership to our educational institutions, not just universities but also colleges and schools. It is high time we deliberate upon the advisability of evolving an independent cadre, an Indian Education Service. This may help some amount of quality control and perhaps, provide fillip to institution-building in the present-day context. It is time to recognise the urgency and importance of evolving independent courses in school management, college management and also university management. If such courses are introduced, a few years later, we can have varsity VCs and registrars who have a Masters in University Management besides having a doctorate in their own discipline.
Trust in the system and guarantee of transparency, fairness and justice are the mainstays of any evaluation system. The introduction of question banks, evolving alternate evaluation systems and incubating institutional leadership will ensure that this trust remains intact.
The writer is former president, Indian Council for Cultural Relations and a BJP leader
