In a process to reset boundaries of education, engineering students of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approved colleges likely to get a chance to appear for open book exam from the academic year 2019.
The advisory body has suggested several guidelines on how to set question paper for better assessment of students in its latest examination reforms policy, in a hope to improve the quality of engineering education in India.
While speaking to Indian Express, Ashok Shettar, chairperson AICTE committee on examination reform and vice chancellor KLE Technological University said that traditional method of conducting exams can only assess students based on their ability to reproduce knowledge. “Through these guidelines, we aim to reform the way we assess our students. We are aiming to match the assessment system with the outcome-based framework our education and industry has adopted based on performance indicators.”
AICTE has advised colleges to either ask less number of questions that encompassed two or three concepts or allocate more time for the exam under open book. According to the policy, this will help to reduce stress for students as it would focus more on the application of the information and develop problem-solving abilities in students and less on the memorizing capabilities.
The policy directs the academicians to set the question paper in such a manner which will require the students to do things with the information given to them, rather than merely find the correct information from the book. It will also motivate the question paper setters to design question papers in a way which assesses students on their application of knowledge.
But the idea will not be implemented in all the exams.
To execute the same, from December, teachers from varied engineering institutes pan India will be trained by AICTE and the guidelines will be activated from the ‘next academic year’. Apart from that, the Examination Reforms Policy will also focus on numerous reforms like mandatory internships, research, students projects etc.