Urgent need to change the way we evaluate!

We pride ourselves in having one of the largest formal education system from schools to colleges to universities. Quite clearly the challenges of handling evaluation [with a fair degree of accuracy, transparency and speed] for such large numbers of students is a task in itself.

It is in this context that one finds the glaring lack in use of well established IT solutions in this fielda serious hurdle in making our system fair and transparent.

Most of the universities in India still carry out the entire examination evaluation manually. A few of them have some form of software to do the calculations and a very select few have a comprehnsive software package for handling this task. One of the reasons why this is the scenario is because most of the decision makers in this field [read the Registrars and controller of Exams] are themselves not too aware of the various solutions available today. Of-course at many places the lack of transparency in this current system ensures that all forms of malpractices flourish and provide a deep routed incentive for them to not change a thing!

Another interesting thing to note in this context is that a large number of universities / colleges still tend to believe that they are better off havign their own departments do any form of automation the university requires. This unfortunately is not the right approach for a large many of such institutes. Professional IT companies in our country have a lot of expertise and can do a good job for them at very affordable prices if given a chance.

Past few years have seen some welcome changes in these matters. The recent decision of CAT to be taken Online is a step in the right direction and can act as the one incident which redefines the very basis of how competitive exams are conducted and evaluated in our country. It will be hard to expect our other exams to follow such a radical path but I am sure it will make them more palatable in their acceptance of atleast technologies like OMR and ICR and modern Document management as part of their evaluation / exam processing system. Hope this change takes place at a much faster pace now across the countries old but respected universities!