There was a comment on my previous post that students must read better books and publishers must publish them. However, students who read good textbooks, think about the subject and write down their thoughts in the exam will probably fail in their exams.
The system is like this:-
In November or so, one of us lecturers gets a confidential letter from the university exam branch, and asked to set the question paper. An unwritten rule is that you must set a paper that is similar to the previous exam papers. A huge hue and cry will arise, if the question paper is 'tough' with student unions and MLAs involving themselves in it.
After the exams are over, we, the lecturers get letters from the university exam branch and asked to report to them for 'spot valuation'. A meeting is held for individual papers....chem paper I has say 40 valuers who meet, discuss what answers must be there on the paper and what marks are to be allotted to each part of the answer. If there is a question for 5 marks, then, in order to ensure uniform valuation, the 5 marks are subdivided-- say 2 marks for definition(as given in the textbook) 1 mark for example, 1 mark for the balanced equation (as in the book again) and 1 mark for the diagram given in the textbook. The student loses marks if any of these components are missing or not according to the textbook.
Thus a student who may understand chemistry well, but does not write as per these prescriptions, may even fail in the exam. Hence, he has to follow these textbooks.
The lecturers cannot change the pattern of the question paper and the student cannot answer in an unconventional manner. Who will start a change?
1 comment:
Being a student and a teacher's son myself, I can totally understand this predicament. One option worth considering would be to introduce alternative. objective methods of evaluation within a college/university such as thesis writing, paper presentation, internships, etc. I know this will create lot of non-uniformity across institutions, but that can be dealt with in higher education by interviewing candidates. I know all this is easier said than done, but such objective evaluation could help select good candidates, courses, and do away with the devils of the archaic examination system.
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