The real purpose of education is to emerge the potential and creative and imaginative capabilities of an individual by using the sacred tools of learning and gaining knowledge but the current examination/evaluation system in force in India, (especially in universities which is stinking with the inspiration/influence of Macaulay’s education policy even today just to produce clerks, men made machines which can be utilized and exploited only like a computer, a store house of information, having no thinking of their own), is such that students are running after only degrees by cracking exams or by buying degrees by hook or crook, having no thirst for real knowledge and real learning, no curiosity and no creative development/inventions, imitating others, leading to wastage of human resource potential because this examination system demands from students only the test that is purely based on how much better they can cram or memorize or store information in the hard disk of their brain just two or three days before the day of the exam and how much better they can vomit on the answer books/ perform in exam. This exam system tests only the memory based crammed knowledge of readymade questions that which student has the highest ability of cramming a junk of information, the skill to remember things in a particular sequence; having no connection with and value for creative thinking ideas which is the true human potential; creating only unnecessary fear and pressure on innocent minds of pupils and youth as good marks is the only passport for them to the gate of so called worldly success; many times leading to shocking suicides of even small children for not getting good marks as this is the end of their life; such a ridiculous and rotten system it is, which rather than opening the doors of mind, is closing the already open windows. A deep rethinking on this issue is the need of the hour to bring a revolutionary change in our education and evaluation system. For this purpose a special committee should be constructed which can be faithfully entrusted this research job to make better India. In current examination system, at least a few changes should be implemented with immediate effect, presented as some suggestions to draw your attention to some major issues :

1. First of all, there should be established, a common pattern of examination system throughout the country in all universities and in all modes of education whether regular or distance or online etc. This will address the issue of grudge of students against the discriminations of marks/awards given by different universities due to their different patterns of evaluation systems for both theory exams and internal assessments as well.

2. More the weightage assigned to a question, more it leads to discriminations in marks by different evaluators depending on their own thinking and many times mood of evaluator created by previous papers examined and luck of student that how much merciful evaluator his luck grants him which is responsible for making the exam system biased and unreliable and partial. So, instead of setting 5 questions by assigning 20 marks to each question; a system of questions with lesser weights assigned should be developed which should be knowledge centric than the memory test focused, having proper blend of questions of 1 mark (without options), 2 marks, 3 marks and 4 marks, subject to maximum of 4 marks to judge the writing skills and knowledge only rather than cramming skill. Quantitiy of 4 marks questions should be lesser than short questions. The gap of differentiation of awards in 4 marks question will be significantly reduced as compared to 20 marks questions. No student ever gets 20 out of 20 marks in a theory question, if we study the previous historical records of universities. larger the weight assigned to a question, larger will be the discrimination/ huge difference in markings by separate examiners making the system poor and unreliable and it’s a bad idea to evaluate a student’s whole year hard work on the basis of just five questions. Chances of poor evaluation will be much higher in this type of careless examination system. Evaluation is serious and much important work upon which the entire career of a student depends. So, any sort of carelessness and loopholes present in the system should be closed with serious measures so that future of students should not be played and compromised with. This system gives poor results and compels the students to run after getting degrees by any means which helps nourish the interests of illegal franchisee centers/education businesses of various private and state universities being run out of their territorial jurisdictions violating the guidelines decided by ugc and their respective state acts. Honest evaluation should be ensured at any cost.

3. The reason of committing suicide by various students of even 10th and 10+2 standards is the fear of wasting of one more year in the same class and being left behind in this fast pacing competitive hellish world. Examination system should be made fearless and just a playful activity which every student should enjoy rather than taking it a burden as exam phobia causing their nervous breakdown. Examination is an opportunity which should be given again for infinite times to a failed student or who have secured less marks, after they have completed their minimum one year of study, the students should be given the facilities of on demand exams which should be conducted every month without waiting for another year to come, which is the only reason of their tension. And this provision should be made mandatory for every university. This will give a harmonious mental environment to the students and gives a message to them that this exam is not going to be the final exam of their life, they still have further endless chances without wasting much time and they will imbibe this spirit that any exam does not mean the end of one’s life. This is the right of every student, this is not a mercy on student because pass certificate will be given only when he will successfully pass the exam, we are not granting him any grace marks to pass, just a facility and a flexible system which should be the fundamental right of every student. Opportunity given only once in a year or six months for representing and expressing the whole year of study by attempting just 5 questions in a limited period of 3 hours only, subject to a limited number of chances, is not a true justice. To make the exam system fair, this exam fair should be organized each month for less lucky students to encourage them to fight further, rather than demotivating them by not giving chances. There should not be such a term like mercy chance because chance is not a mercy but the right of a student. Sometimes students miss a particular chance due to unavoidable circumstances like health problem or traffic jams or strikes etc. but this existing cruel system will compel him to think himself as unlucky person or his bad luck. But the real culprit and creator of this bad luck is the system, not the individual himself.

4. Our examination system is focused on quantity of content/matter rather than quality of content. It means many times the only focus of the evaluator is on how many number of pages have been filled up by the student. Students also have developed a wrong notion of writing more to get more marks without considering the quality of content. But the reality is that better can be written in a few words and that is the true art of explaining better in less words. To reduce and check this type of tendency, LIMITED SPACE per question should be provided in theory exams for writing in answer books. And some extra space at the end of answer booklet should be given for writing additional things in emergency.

5. Number system cannot compare students of mathematics and literature equally. Theoretical and practical exams both cannot be compared equally by the same number system of marking because theory exams attract less marks generally than practical exams. To solve this problem, GRADING SYSTEM should be adopted like some other universities (like ignou) have already adopted it. More research should be done in this regard to how to develop the world’s best education and evaluation system in India.

6. There is no unification in rules of separate universities. One university ( ignou) considers better of the two scores, original and after re evaluation as the final but other universities ( like kurukshetra university) considers only the score after re evaluation as final, even in the case of decrease in marks will be binding on the students and some universities even don’t permit their students the facility of re evaluation. So there should be standardization in rules which should be universally adopted by each university.

7. Proper channel wise Grievance redressal mechanisms should be set up in the universities by making the concerned officials accountable within a stipulated time period to seriously address the particular issue so that the regular agitations in universities by groups of students should be reduced significantly.

8. The focus of education should be research and creativity oriented. We generally see the news of foreign universities in papers about their regular researches in a particular field which makes lives easier and better and meaningful but we never hear of such things about Indian universities as we are lagging behind in this direction because our focus centers only on issuing worthless degrees by testing the readymade crammed information enforced in the learner’s minds which they forget after taking the exams. A learner should be motivated and encouraged for doing creative research based activities and this goal is not possible until the universities will take this issue seriously. Research based activities should be made a part of evaluation system and strict measures for punishment should be taken against copying and pasting like piracy based unfair means activities or getting the project completed from someone else. And thinking it to be just a formality by teachers is the only source of discouraging the creative minds. Excellence should be stressed. New ideas should be welcomed and honored and awarded suitably to encourage the healthy competition of generating original and authentic ideas only. The motive should be to produce Albert Eienstein like genius personalities and not mere clerks and station master and post masters only. Such atmosphere needs to be created with dedicated efforts, only then its sustainability can be expected.

9. Universities and school boards are doing the job of teaching and issuing syllabuses and issuing certificates but no university or board takes the botheration of providing quality content/ written material and recorded video lectures and animated contents on complex topics etc to students, especially the distance education students. Students only depend on the books of private publishers, which should be the responsibility of universities to create quality books before offering a course to the students and the written and audio video content should be made online for students and general learners also, free of cost. Teachers publish their works through private publishers in their own interests and the content offered by universities is of very miserable quality which no one likes to read and that is also made available to students after wasting more than half of the academic year just to complete the formalities only, having no connection and motive with real learning. Deep analysis is required to improve the condition.

10. All the endeavors of teachers and students and coaching centers etc are directed towards only how to crack the exam by tracing loopholes of the existing faulty examination system and pass with good marks to get a degree irrespective of the thirst of real learning and real knowledge. Teachers and students both are doing their duties keeping in view this examination system in mind with the help of the magic wand of cramming/memorizing facts and crash courses and by adopting shortcuts to fill information in minds and there is hardly any chance of learning to happen in the real sense. There is something wrong happening which needs to be traced out. Pure and creative learning is a bliss and memorizing data and facts is a torture. Reconsideration on faults of this evaluation should be traced and eliminated.

11. The right of challenging against the marks granted to a student, should be given to each student to reduce the malpractice of careless marking of papers to promote fair judgement. A system should be developed for this like-if some evaluators of other universities are in favour of granting more marks (A special provision will be required for this to accept such applications by other universities), then the concerned candidate will be granted the highest of the all awards compulsorily by the original university, if the candidate does not express his faith in the university he belongs to. This provision will be able to ensure the fair evaluation by checking the malpractice of poor evaluation. This is the brief outline and idea only, more can be done even in a better way with good intentions.

12. Internal assessment system adopted in universities and colleges is very discriminating. Students develop fear for less assessment in colleges which can spoil their career, if they protest against any teacher for any reason even when the reason is genuine; even then they have to remain silent because the internal assessment awards are in the hands of the concerned subject teacher. This is the exploitation of highest order. So this system should be abolished which is based on partiality and favoritism. Some universities offer higher internal assessment and some offer less to distance students by various modes like by submitting assignments or on ratio basis or by conducting a test etc. And students run after those universities which offer higher internal assessment in a cheap manner and they secure better marks as compared to hard working students of other universities. All this is happening is exploitation and discrimination on the name of internal assessment. There is no real spirit of internal assessment anywhere, it is a merely a powerful tool in the hands of teachers to get the flattery of students and a device created for students to get good marks. This is ridiculous. It is better to abolish this kind of system and should be universally implemented in each university. And there is no actual need of such worthless failed systems.

13. Semester system which was thought to be a boon for students in the manner that it will lessen their burden of studies by bifurcating their syllabuses but the effect in real life is just the opposite. This semester system has enhanced the burden on students rather than lessening it because it causes unnecessary delays in examinations and starting of new sessions. This system disturbs the balance by creating more and frequent and early fears of exams on the times when the students are not actually fully prepared for the exams because classes start very late due to this system and students do not get full time to get prepared themselves for the exams. This system enhances pressures on universities also by increasing their work loads and many months which get wasted for conducting exams two times, could have been fruitfully utilized in some academic and creative activities, which could have been beneficial not only to students but also to the society in which they live by contributing and utilizing their creative potential for it. Instead of focusing on such a wasteful non flexible semester system, we should use our energy to adopt a flexible system like on demand exams, which will be truly in the interests of the learners.


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