Open book examination

The famous English economist and Nobel Prize laureate John Maynard Keynes’ life has a very inspiring anecdote that may  serve as a big eye - opener for the millions of the people who consider marks as the only parameter of real intelligence of a student. 

They say that when J M Keynes was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, media thronged his house to enquire about the background of his life. What came as the biggest surprise for them was the unbelievable fact that Keynes had scored comparatively the lesser marks in economics than other papers of the undergraduate examination. 

When asked the reasons of this much-unexpected-dismal-performance, Keynes had answered, “All the answers I wrote were pragmatically application-based which the evaluators failed to assess properly and consequently I was awarded very poorly.” This revelation by the distinguished scholar like Keynes must prove as a soothing balm for those examinees who are made to take marks no way less important than the matter of life and death. 

Unlike other countries across the world, examinations in India are bizarrely abuzz with a lot of brouhaha infamously for reasons which range from the phenomenon of leakage of question papers to the pretty disgusting event of malpractice such as unfair means being adopted by the examinees and surprisingly abetted by their parents alike. 

However, if we even ignore these unscrupulous and unpalatable practices of question papers leakages and other allied maladies, the traditional tried and tested method of what we may call the close-book examination system, under which questions are set from the curricula taught, has been highly vulnerable to severe criticisms on the basis of myriad other reasons too, inter alia, assessment of students on the basis of parroting of lessons to answer the question papers, lacuna of analytical ability, absence of communication skill, lack of writing ability, paucity of socio-familial and life skills and problem-solving capacity of the students.  

Arguably, there could not have been more relevant time than now when a four-member committee, set up in January this year, on examination reforms, has put forth the recommendation of ‘open book examination’ for the engineering courses to the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE), the apex regulatory body of technical education. 

However, the recommendation is yet due for approval by the AICTE and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) but the impact of the yet-to-be integral part of the education policy is going to deliver far reaching impacts on the modus operandi of teaching and learning in the years to come. If this recommendation comes into force, it is set to bring about epoch-making changes in the students’ insight into examinations and even in class-room teaching model.

Open-book examinations, under which students are allowed to carry  text books, class notes and other resource materials to examination hall for their use to answer the questions, is fundamentally based upon the Bloom’s Taxonomy, a set of three-hierarchical models signifying objectives of educational learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy, designed to promote unprecedentedly higher strata of thinking and analytical power in education, was conceptualized by the famous educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom. Simply, Bloom’s Taxonomy is related with the goals of the learning process.

The Bloom’s Taxonomy, which seeks to promote analysis and evaluation skills of concepts, processes, procedures and principles among the students, classifies learning objectives into three parts- cognitive (knowledge, development of intellectual skills), affective (development of feelings or emotion in education system) and sensory domains (also called as psychomotor skill is related with physical skills or stamina). The taxonomy functions as the inherent foundation of designing of educational, training and learning outcomes. 

There is no gainsaying the fact that examination system in a country like ours, which is badly stuck in the severe employability skills crisis and quality education crunch, is tantamount to the functioning of a computer-programmed-sophisticated-machine which churns out graduates, postgraduates, scholars and various degree holders without having to pass through any quality check to find whether they dovetail the need of the various segments of the country or not. 

This has happened due to the marks’ pseudo-magic which runs so wild in our country that examinees leave no stone unturned to score the highest percent of it by hook or by crook. 

But an important question of self-introspection arises at this transitional stage of imminent key educational reforms - To what extent will the open-book examination system succeed to solve the problems of rote learning, cramming of facts, figures, concepts and even recall of lessons learnt? No doubt, introduction of open-book system would boost the imaginative and analytical power as well as development of critical and creative thinking because under the system to answer the questions merely copying the text would not be helpful, but the vital question which arises here is - is our pedagogy, which takes teachers as the facilitators of transfer of knowledge from the text books to the mind and memory and finally want students to vomit out them onto the paper in the examination hall, well-equipped to face the unprecedented challenges of preparing the new edition of students who will question the answers rather than answer the questions? 

In the context of the traditional chalk and talk system of pedagogy in India, revamping of examination system must serve as the corollary of the revamping of classroom teaching and ritual of lessons retaining by the learners. 

The conventional role of schools, colleges and universities, the centre of the dissemination of the information, needs to be gradually switched over to the centre of discussion and debate on the curricula. Virtual reality and semblance of the class rooms may considerably benefit in the conceptualisation and visualization of the various phenomena which occur in and around our surroundings. For the hundred percent desired efficacy a holistic paradigm change in the learning and teaching process needs not only to be ushered in but implemented in the truest spirit too. 

Martin Luther King Jr once had said. “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education.” No doubt it is a herculean task but when we succeed moulding our little angelic cherubs in the cast of formation of character, creativity, ethos and pathos only then the true meaning of education would be realized and this will be possible only when we free our learners from the shackles of what we may call rote learning and memorising.

The writer is Principal, Jawahar Navodya Vidyalaya Dinthat Veng, Mamit, Mizoram

BY Shreeprakash Sharma