Reason For Paradigm Shift In Assessment In India

 Key Issues and Reasons for a Paradigm Shift in Assessment Practices in India. 

The assessments are an integral part of the educational process as a syllabus and pedagogy. Assessments help to understand the learning outcome of the children. The crucial discussion has been going around the forms of the assessments and it’s implementation since the colonial period. The current Indian educational system includes a formative assessment which assessing the children between the course have been instructed, and a summative assessment which testing the children at the end or middle of the year. Indian education system mostly focused on the formative assessment rather than summative. But a huge shift had happened in this system through the implementation of several policies. The article aims to look at these shifts and the reasons, issues around these assessments implementation. 

The assessments and examination should be to know the children learning outcome like which they understand, what parts they don’t and what kind of supports they need from the teachers for further studies. Along this process, teachers and other stakeholders should take decisions to make learning improvements like changing the pedagogy or curriculum. It is not a process that marking the children, and selecting the most brilliant students from the class. Or not passing and falling the children. But, most education institution focuses the second to select rank holder than supporting and evaluating them through the tests and exams. 

History of the paradigm shifts in the assessment in the Indian education system, Many policies and commissions are held in India to have a paradigm shift in the education system. We had seen many challenges and debated around these shifts until we reach the new education policy 2020.

 

The Radhakrishna commission was set up in 1948, this commission took reforms in the assessment by should be the continent assessment at the university level. Not any changes in school education. At that time The Indian education was following the system which was in the colonial period. That colonial education method continued after independence. In 1952, the Mudhaliar commission looked into the issues in the secondary level education regarding the assessment. The Mudhaliar commission focused on the reduction of external exam and it introduced the internal exams. Some changes had happened in the examination after the recommendation of the Mudhaliar commission.

 

In 1968, the Kothari commission raised lots of concerns about the assessment and introduced some changes to it. It was that Indian methods of assessment should be changed into the continuous evaluation process. The national policy in 1986 derived based on the Khotari commission was focus on the continuous evaluation process. In 1993, The Yeshpal committee added some changes as a modification of questionaries in the 10th and 12th class. We can see here how the shifts were happening through the years from the colonial education system. The crucial turning point in the assessment was really had in 2009 through the implementation of the righto education act. CCE and No detention policy was the big shift in that act.

A major section of the Right to education act 2009 

Section 16: Prohibition of holding back and expulsion. No child admitted to a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education. No detention policy was implemented for several reasons. 

• Section 30: No child shall be required to pass any Board examination till completion of elementary education. 
• Section 29: Comprehensive and continuous evaluation of children’s understanding of knowladge and his or her ability to apply to them. 

Issues and reasons for the paradigm shifts in the assessment 

As I said above the Indian education system was following the methods of the colonial period’s education system. Lots of the problems were found around this system. The system which had earlier around after the period of the independence that only evaluating the children through the examinations and test. The system of Uniformity, Objective reliability and Impersonal. 

The systems of uniformity which every student expected to write the same answers for the same questions. The examinations will have a special fixed time for all students like the board exam ( we will discuss it later). Here stakeholders try to centralize the evaluating system.  The exam writers do not possible to write or give different perspectives and views around the subject if the test is objective. Higher-order thinking capacity will lose by this process. Because every student needs to give special answers which exam stakeholders expect. It is kind of centralizing the knowladge of the students.

 

Every child needs a personal evaluation. The examination system only focuses on the impersonal test. There is not a test or evaluations of the personality. The skills and cognitive will not expose these systems.  The main purpose of the assessment would not happen when the system only depends on the exam and test. Because the test and exams mainly focus to mark children and certify them.

Children’s intention became to score the mark or just passed in the exam. When stakeholders also expect the certifying and ranking the children and presenting the awards how it possible to give feedback to them and give them support in the subject which they need. We are not able to evaluate the children’s understandings of the subject. Therefore main purposes have lost here. we the community not ready to support the depressed students who failed the exams. But we ready to appreciate and give prizes to them. it understands that the culture of examination highly impacted our society.

 

When we discussed children’s perspectives. What happening there actually. The students focus on scoring the mark or just get a pass in the exam. If they want to pass, they will not focus on to understand the subject. They will try to memorize things and a copy will have in the examination hall. Almost children doing this even at this time in our country. Children get mark but not knowladge.In y school experience, the teacher who taught me Economics in higher secondary class was skipping any parts of the textbook. and he had said that these are all not important to study because the majority chance is it will not come for the exam. some teachers will ask to mark in some places as important and very important. we were almost depended on the questions mark and memorized the question to pass the exam. 1.5 million engineers graduate every year in India. Even these much students graduate, what our country far in the information and technology field related to other countries. What is the reason for this, the famous companies tata says we are not getting qualified engineer graduates but we need to teach them after their graduations? There is no meaning that passes the exam and not getting the knowledge.

 

The standardizing test has many issues like considering the good student who scored the good mark. Students are not supposed to test the majority which they thought in the classroom. Because the summative assessment can’t cover all things. There is limited pedagogical value. Some of the children can pass the exam even if they don’t study anything. A good mark will get even the student to understand. 

Board exam.

 

There is no board exam before the 10 standards in the current education system. But there was before 2009. here I look into the issues around the board exams. 

The board also conducting the exams for the entrance or exit, to get a job to certify children rather concerning the understanding of students learning outcomes. The more questions of the board exams are from the textbook. When most questions will be covered from the textbook, it will be difficult to relate to the things which they studied in the class to the real-world of the child. And there are problem and errors in making the question papers. No quality in the question paper. Many questions are there for lower-order thinking.

 

CCE and NO detention policy 

No Detention policy which children will pass until the primary level was to reduce the stress and anxiety among the children especially those who disadvantaged. The summative examination will make the elementary children more stressed to disadvantaged students because they are note similar to the advantaged students, they not get the supports from the home. Abcsents problems also there in their school life. Because of that, if they are failed in an exam and return to in same classes they will not ready to come to school. Those students also face the challenges of face insulting other students for the failure. I remember many suicide cases had happened by the failure of the board exams. Even it is also happening in competitive examinations. if it is so stressful to elder children, what will have to the young children. The government mainly focus on the attendance of the children by implementing the no-detention policy and free and compulsory education for students who are between the 6 and 14 ages. 

Teachers can understand the learning outcomes of the children through formative assessment, especially continuous and comprehensive evaluations. It is learning without burden and students will have more cognitive development. There is an opportunity for individual success. Not the same questions and similar expectation. The way which evaluating is different for each and every child. Understanding is the main importing rather than expressing way. Some kind joys also there. Children will more participative and interested to learn more. Because, it includes group discussion, drawing, poem and story writing, essay, portfolio, and drama. These are the main reason to shift to CCE.

 

Problems around CCE and NO- detention policy

The debate around the CCE and No detention policy still going on. The main problem here is how the teacher’s perspectives about the CCE and NO- detention policy. Of course, teachers need more training to implement CCE in the classroom. Otherwise, it will lead to misunderstanding like what happened in some teachers. whenever I talk to the teachers they might say it will not work properly in the school, this is not a good policy but we need to work on it. 

If stakeholders and teachers have not more idea about it, it will lead to two negative things. No exam and not to study. Children will careless in the learning, they will think don’t need study because we have no exam. These problems still have in the education sectors. Even teachers and some organizations also criticizing it. CABE argued that the no-detention policy only applicable for 5th class students.  The issues only having because of the unawareness of the policy. A most educationally developed country like Finland follow continuous and comprehensive assessment, there is no board exam. We need to develop more training and coaching in this field and try to convince the teacher for the better feature of our country. New education policy-2020 opened the way for more continues and comprehensive assessment.