Here's How The Future of Examinations in India is Digital The Indian education sector is slowly but surely realising that it is imperative to re-think their education and examination methods as it stands to gain tremendously from digital transformation
By Srikanth Ganesan •
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Forward thinking universities are adopting the digital dream and implementing technology trends to equip Indian students with an education that provides them with skills and creative thinking that meet the growing demands of a digital age.
In recent years, several educational institutions opted out of the traditional university structures and started operating outside their walls to strengthen the quality of their examination system and to fulfil their environmental responsibility; they transitioned from a pen-and-paper-based model to digital examinations. Paper-based exams worked well when the intake into tertiary education was in a few hundreds of thousands. But with 35mn students in Indian tertiary education system, paper as a medium for exams is putting a lot of strain on the Universities and Academicians, who spend nearly 8 months in a year administering exams. This takes away their focus from the qualitative aspect of education and learning.
Digital examinations are ergonomically designed to keep the complexity out of writing descriptive examinations on paper, by using a custom exam writing device, the menu interfaces of which are designed to keep the navigation intuitive. It also has quite a few features, blending the tried-and-tested with appropriate twenty-first-century experience. Today nearly 40,000 students have written their exams using these purpose-built devices and the majority of the students have reacted positively towards using these devices for writing examinations.
The advantages of Digital examinations are innumerable:
Eco-friendly initiative.
Eliminates cheating and other forms of malpractices from the examination process.
Assessment and evaluation errors eliminated.
Examination timings are adhered to strictly.
Rules out bias and gives a fair evaluation.
Teachers can analyse every student based on their exam writing pattern, questions based performance, behavioural patterns of students while writing exams etc, to help students overcome their fear of exams and reduce the pressure on them by helping them perform better.
Faculty members don't have the additional responsibility of handling question papers or answer sheets.
Descriptive questions are used during evaluation to encourage students to give up rote learning and develop reasoning skills and creative thinking.
Evaluators no longer have to stay back to work, since all of the data is stored online. It is easily accessible and they can evaluate from any computer.
Quickens the correction process resulting in the results being declared earlier, reducing stress and pressure on students and faculty.
Storage issues resolved as confidential and unlimited data can be stored on the cloud with digital examinations and all critical data would be handed over to the university
The Universities do not encounter any major challenges during digital examinations, in terms of administering the exams, thanks to the continuous tech support provided by the operations team of the digital examinations provider that is onsite during the examination delivery. As for students, in order to prepare them for future jobs, we must ensure that they are familiar with technology and able to think of creative solutions to everyday issues. The possibilities and benefits for the education sector are endless with digital examinations. This is the true calling of a Digital India.
