Online examinations are here to stay - education

A wise man said that necessity is the mother of invention. Though this cannot be applied to the subject of Online Examinations, the spirit of these wise words could be borrowed to understand why the Indian Education System is exploring Online Examinations. Our country relies on summative assessments for progression in our education system. The summative assessments are in the form of end term examinations. This is more applicable in our higher education system and to some extent in the school education system.

The unprecedented lockdown due to Covid-19 has taken away the wind from the sails of the conventional education system. Students and faculty are confined in their homes and as a result, paper and pen exams in a traditional examination hall are no more feasible. The uncertainty associated with the tenure of such a lockdown and delayed exams is threatening to delay the progress of millions of students enrolled in our higher education system. The direct impact of this delay is on the student, but the indirect impact is much larger, as it disrupts the well-oiled supply chain of qualified human resources that are required to fuel the growth of our economy.

It is quite paradoxical to note that many competitive examinations of international repute like GRE and GMAT have gone online and from home, but our higher education system finds it difficult to adopt, when the same is applied to the examinations conducted by majority of schools and colleges in India. We do understand the reasons for uneasiness because the present situation is complex and demands that the online exams be administered in a manner that can be taken by the students from their home. So, let us look at the some of the reasons for this uneasiness:

1. Can an online exam be synchronous? In other words, can the entire cohort of students take the exams as per the examination schedule?

2. How does one proctor such an examination, where students are dispersed geographically and appearing for exams from home?

3. How can the invigilator address the issue of unfair means like the use of books, access to the Internet, mobile connectivity and prompting by a friend from the

background when exams are being conducted online?

4. What happens if there is a power blackout or the connectivity to the internet is lost?

5. The most important concern is, are online assessments as rigorous as paper and pen exams?

6. Last but not the least, the aversion to adoption of technology both by faculty and students, that is, to come out of the comfort zone.

Besides these direct concerns, the ubiquity of computer accessibility and availability of Internet connectivity is another major concern. The above concerns are real and can generate interesting arguments during a debate. However, these concerns are myths that can be shattered, if one delves into the features provided by various technology platforms designed to deliver online examinations that can be taken from anywhere.

Today, most of the technology platforms are cloud based and can be accessed from anywhere anytime. Thus, organizing a synchronous event to conduct examination across

students dispersed geographically is probably the easiest problem to handle. Most computer devices and tabs are equipped with web camera, or we may call them the eyes of the computer which when powered by some powerful AI enabled software can do magic.

Thus, when a student is appearing for an examination from home, the student is “eye locked”. What this means is, that the camera is used to detect any abnormal action such as picking up a mobile phone, periodically looking at one location, noticing any kind of assistance being received from another person etc. Such features ensure that the human proctor observing the student sitting miles away behind the proctoring terminal does not miss such anomalies and can immediately address the suspected action. If the investigation does reveal malpractice the human proctor can initiate on- the- spot action just like that of a conventional exam hall. The combined power of AI proctoring enabled by the camera and the microphone on the student’s computer, coupled with invigilation by a human proctor, provides for a robust proctoring mechanics, may even be beating the conventional proctoring in a traditional examination hall.

Power blackouts and connectivity failures are realities that one cannot ignore. However, the risks associated with the same are easily mitigated by configuring such exams to maintain the last state of the machine and resume the exam when power or connectivity is restored.

The examination host can configure multiple parameters to define the period of the blackout beyond which the examination could be cancelled, and a make-up examination could be conducted.

All online examination platforms can offer all question types which can be rendered on a paper pen exam. Such platforms can also provide assessment which would require the students to solve a real-life problem such as writing a piece of code and/or building a data analytics model. These flexibilities make the examination platforms more versatile in terms of delivering a rigorous exam. The level of the rigor is completely determined by the assessor.

Technology platforms that enable online examinations in our country also provide services to assist institutions for delivering online examinations. The role of the faculty continues to be limited to providing the question paper and evaluation of the answer scripts. Technology platforms do permit faculty to correct answer sheets online and also have the option of providing them printed versions to suit their comfort and convenience. This is a classic example of leveraging IT Enabled services for an important function such as examinations without impacting the nature of work of the faculty. Thus, the perception, that online exams is about technology readiness, needs to be changed to eradicate the attitude of aversion across stakeholders: administrators, faculty, and students.

In the post Covid-19 era, social distancing is going to be the new normal. We may lose the convenience of organizing exams in halls that can accommodate many students. The availability of examination halls may become a scarcity in the coming days and to overcome this, administrators may increase the frequency for examinations. However online examinations can easily reduce the burden by keeping students who have access to computer and internet at home and the rest could write the exams conventionally. Online examination is emerging as a possible solution to address the concerns around social distancing.

Having addressed the primary concerns, it will only be fair to look at the advantages that Online Examination can offer. Some of the key advantages are mentioned below:

1. Differential paper setting can be done with ease. One has to choose the right algorithm amongst many offered by online examination platforms to determine the

question paper to be rendered to various students. Thus, online exams can mitigate the risk of paper leakage substantially.

2. Automatic correction of multiple-choice questions and some other types of questions can reduce the burden of evaluations considerably and can eliminate the

occurrence of errors in evaluations. Not to forget that the evaluation of such questions can happen on real time. The subjective answers can be routed to

authorized assessor in a blind manner further mitigating the risks associated with malpractices that need extra vigilance and resources in conventional exams.

3. Preventing impersonification, in other words ensuring that the paper is answered by the registered candidate and not anyone else is also well addressed by technology. Applying two/three factor authentication, the same mechanics used in online banking if applied to examinations can eradicate the proxy writing practice from the country.

4. The online examination system also offers multiple solutions to help differently abled persons to write examinations along with the peer group in the batch.

Questions could be read out by the machine and answers can be captured by voice files to assist such persons. The technology can replace the need for a proxy writer

or reader for such persons, making it more convenient for such persons to appear in examinations.

5. Last but the most significant, saving of paper, resources spent on transporting and logistics for delivering exams the conventional way and the subsequent resources spent for assessing the answer sheets would definitely add to the convenience of higher education institutions. Not to forget the reduced time in delivering examinations and its associated logistics can reduce the stress on the students and help the institutions in declaring the results on time.

A democracy like India, which is the largest, has been able to pull off elections through e-voting. India, which is considered the back office of the world for Information Technology, should be least concerned about the challenges and should lap up the advantage of online examination to make our examination system agile, reliable, efficient and most importantly stress free for the students.

Online examinations should be adopted and propagated across educational institutions for delivering exams in the future to give shape to our dream of a truly digital India.

The authors are Sanjay Padode – Founder of IFIM Business School , Chairman, CDE and Dr Atish Chattopadhyay – Director of IFIM Business School. Views expressed are personal.

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UPSC EPFO EO, AO Recruitment 2020: Exam postponed till further notice, check details - education

Union Public Service Commission, or UPSC, on Friday, announced that the recruitment test for the post of EO/AO in EPFO stands deferred till further notice. The recruitment exam was scheduled to be conducted on October 4, 2020.

The online registration process for the examination began on January 31, 2020. UPSC is conducting the recruitment drive to fill 421 vacancies of Enforcement Officer/Accounts Officer, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, Ministry of Labour, and Employment. Out of which, 168 vacancies are for the unreserved category, 116 for OBC, 62 for SC, 42 for EWS, and 33 for ST.

“Recruitment Test (RT) and Interview carry weightage in the ratio of 75:25 for the candidates shortlisted based on Recruitment Test (RT) and qualify in the interview,” reads the official recruitment notice.

For more details, candidates are advised to read the official recruitment notification.

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UPSC Prelims 2020 Revised schedule released at upsc.gov.in, check it here - education

UPSC Prelims 2020: Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Friday released the revised schedule for UPSC civil services preliminary examination 2020 on its official website. Candidates can check the revised schedule online at upsc.gov.in.

The UPSC civil service prelims exam will be conducted on October 4, 2020 while the main exam will be conducted on January 8, 2021.

Initially, the commission had scheduled to release the fresh dates for the civil services preliminary examination 2020 on May 20 which was then postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier, the UPSC civil services prelim examination was scheduled to be conducted on May 31 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nearly seven lakh candidates register for the UPSC prelims every year and it is considered one of India’s most coveted examinations. This year around 10 lakh aspirants have registered for the UPSC prelims examination.

Check UPSC revised calendar here

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‘Nothing confirmed so far’: UP govt on reports of teacher earning Rs 1 cr by working in 25 schools - education

After reports that a teacher worked in 25 schools simultaneously and earned over Rs 1 crore as salary in 13 months, the Uttar Pradesh government on Friday said a probe is on and “nothing has been confirmed so far”.

“Acting on media reports, Additional Director, Basic Education was ordered to probe the matter. Nothing has been confirmed so far. The name of a teacher has come to light…she is absconding now. It is being said that Rs 1 crore was paid as salary…This is not at all true. No such thing has been confirmed,” Director General School Education Vijay Kiran Anand told PTI.

“A probe is on and if allegations are true, an FIR will be lodged. The transfer of money (salary) in her bank account has also not been done. Divisional officers are investigating the matter. Strict action will be taken if any teacher is found to be working as a proxy teacher in other schools,” the officer said.

According to complaints, a woman teacher who is native of Mainpuri worked in over 25 schools and drew salary of over Rs one crore.

There are allegations that she worked as a science teacher in Kastruba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Ambedkar Nagar, Baghpat, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Prayagraj and other places.

KGBV teachers are appointed on contract and get Rs 30,000 as pay.

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U.S. schools lay off hundreds of thousands, setting up lasting harm to kids - education

Late last month, San Diego high school teacher Jessica Macias put aside her worries about her future, psyched herself up and launched into an enthusiastic lesson via video feed to her class on the theory of knowledge.

Macias, a 26-year-old English teacher, had attended Castle Park High School herself as a student. While delivering that lecture, she said, she was “pushing to the back of my head” that she’d soon be unemployed. Macias, along with 204 other teachers in San Diego’s Sweetwater Union High School District, will lose her job when the school year ends June 5.

The night before the class, she said in an interview, “I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about not having a job.”

Macias will join the staggering number of public school personnel across the United States who have lost their jobs in the wake of school closures amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In April alone, 469,000 public school district personnel nationally lost their jobs, including kindergarten through twelfth-grade teachers and other school employees, a Labor Department economist told Reuters.

That is more than the nearly 300,000 total during the entire 2008 Great Recession, according to a 2014 paper by three university economists financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. The number of public school teachers hasn’t recovered from that shakeout, reaching near-2008 levels only in 2019.

Multiple school district administrators, public officials and teaching experts have warned that the current school personnel job loss will last for years, hurting the education of a generation of American students. It also could be a drag on economic recovery, for one thing because school districts are big employers.

The Labor Department reported on May 8 that 20.5 million non-farm workers lost jobs in April, including 980,000 government workers. Of those, 801,000 were local government employees. Although the Labor Department report does not break out the number, 469,000 of the 801,000 local government workers were K-12 public school teachers and other school personnel, the department economist told Reuters.

Big Blow To Poor Areas

School districts in poor areas face the most punishing blows. A Brookings Institution paper in April predicted that education layoffs “would come at the worst possible time for high-poverty schools, as even more students fall into poverty and need more from schools as their parents and guardians lose their own jobs.”

Low-income districts are particularly troubled because of plunging revenue amid the Covid-19 recession. Districts rely for revenue on local property taxes and state subsidies. Poorer districts, where property tax revenue is low, rely on states for most of their income. With states hit hard by falling income and sales taxes, aid to school districts is dwindling in many places.

The job losses at public K-12 schools are bigger and coming faster than experts anticipated. Michael Griffith, a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, says “we’re looking at record cuts in teaching positions.”

In addition, many librarians – who now perform a variety of essential classroom functions – are expected to be let go. So may college advisors and the aides who work with developmentally and physically disabled students.

Many teachers and administrators are predicting class sizes will double with fewer teachers on the payroll. Some say the teacher losses will be felt in other ways.

Robert Hull, chief executive of the National Association of State Boards of Education, which represents states’ interests, told Reuters most class sizes actually will shrink when schools reopen. That is because of COVID-19 and the need for social distancing. One adaptation will be to have students come to school, on a staggered basis, only on certain days of the week, and possibly receive video instruction other days. He predicted that some of these changes would be permanent.

Democrats Seek AID Bill

A bill passed recently by the Democratic Party-controlled U.S. House of Representatives would provide $13.5 billion in aid to K-12 public schools. Republicans, who control the Senate, oppose the bill as written. Its fate hangs in the balance as school teachers and administrators hope for the bailout.

April was an especially cruel month for education. The Labor Department report said that in addition to the 469,000 K-12 personnel, state-run colleges and universities laid off 176,000 professors and other employees. Private schools, including well-known colleges and universities and K-12 private schools, were down by 457,000.

On average, 80% of public K-12 school budgets go to salaries and benefits, according to data from the Learning Policy Institute, leaving little besides employees to cut.

Susanna Loeb, a professor of education at Brown University, said she believes most of the 469,000 laid off in April were non-teacher personnel, as districts tend to fire teachers last. But anecdotal evidence from interviews and press reports suggests that the toll includes significant numbers of teachers.

The Paterson, New Jersey, school district is laying off 243 teachers. The school board of Rochester, New York, has authorized laying off up to 198 teachers. The Napa school district in California’s Napa Valley has voted for 145 teacher layoffs. Many small districts are laying off proportionately large numbers of teachers.

Like schools across the country, San Diego’s Sweetwater already had severe financial problems before Covid-19 hit. Sweetwater Superintendent Karen Janney did not respond to attempts to reach her for comment.

English teacher Macias is out of luck. Because she had been a teacher there for only four years, her lack of seniority put her on the chopping block. There would be no reprieve even though she taught challenging classes, including baccalaureate degree courses required by European universities. She says she hasn’t yet seen any other openings in California.

“One of my biggest dreams was to teach at Castle Park,” Macias says.

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UPSC Civil Services Prelims 2020: New exam date to be announced today - education

Union Public Service Commission, or UPSC, will release the fresh schedule for UPSC civil services preliminary examination 2020 today on its official website. Candidates can check the revised schedule after it is released online at upsc.gov.in.

Earlier, the UPSC had scheduled to release the revised dates for civil services preliminary examination 2020 on May 20 which was then postponed.

“With a view to giving some clarity to candidates of various examinations and interviews, which have been deferred over the last two months, the Commission will issue a revised schedule of examinations in its next meeting to be held on June 5, 2020. Details of the new calendar of examinations will be published on the UPSC website, after the Commission’s meeting on June 5, 2020,” the official notice reads.

Initially, the UPSC civil services prelim examination was scheduled to be conducted on May 31 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over seven lakh candidates register for the UPSC prelims every year and it is considered one of India’s most desired examinations. This year around 10 lakh aspirants have registered for the UPSC prelims examination.

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BPSC MDO Recruitment 2020: Registration window to apply for mineral development officer reopens - education

Home / Education / BPSC MDO Recruitment 2020: Registration window to apply for mineral development officer reopens

BPSC MDO Recruitment 2020: BPSC has reopened the registration window to apply for 20 posts of mineral development officers. Now the aspirants can apply till June 11. Check full details here.

education
Updated: Jun 05, 2020 11:06 IST

BPSC MDO Recruitment 2020: Application deadline extended to apply for mineral development officer(HT File)

Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has reopened the registration window to apply for the posts of mineral development officer (MDO). The registration window for BPSC MDO Recruitment was closed on May 18. However, it has been reopened on June 5, Friday. The last date of registration has been extended till June 11.

After the registration is complete, candidates will have to apply for the post on or before June 25. The last date of submission of application fee is June 18. Candidates will have to pay the application fee through net banking/ credit or debit car/ UPI etc.

After the application form is submitted online, candidates will have to take a print out of the filled form and send it to BPSC office with other required documents. The hard copy of application form should reach the office before June 30, 6pm.

Details of Vacancy:

There are a total of 20 vacancies. Candidates who wish to apply for the posts must have at least 2nd class degree in M.Sc. in Geology/ Applied Geology/ M.Tech. in Geology or a degree in Mining Engineering. Candidates have to clear a written exam followed by an interview for final selection.

Check full details here

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