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Autonomy in Examination Reforms: A Case of the American College

Article  in  SSRN Electronic Journal · August 2017

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3486399

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Autonomy in Examination Reforms: A Case of the American College

DR J. JOHN SEKAR, MA, MPhil, PGDTE (CIEFL), PGDHE (IGNOU), PGDCE (UH), PhD
Head & Associate Professor
Research Department of English
Dean, Academic Policies & Administration
The American College
MADURAI – 625 002
INDIA
jjohnsekar@gmail.com
9486782184
Introduction
Academic autonomy provides ample space for innovation in curriculum designing and
periodical curriculum renewal. Curriculum includes identification of learner needs and
educational objectives, course-wise objectives, and learning inputs, modes of delivery,
learning experiences, and testing. Testing is an important, inevitable component of learning
experience and certification. It should also align with course objectives and learning inputs
provided in the class. It is also a dynamic process and therefore it requires revisits and
reforms. This article examines how autonomy at the American College, Madurai since 1978
enables the teaching community to experiment innovations in examination.
Genesis
The concept of academic autonomy as recommended by the Kothari Commission of 1964-66
was studied in the following years as alternative academic practice by the faculty of the
American College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu in several faculty meetings and sub-committees
specially formed for the purpose. Subsequently, as a teaching fraternity, the College
volunteered for the introduction of academic autonomy by way of seeking permission from
the State Government of Tamil Nadu and the UGC. Since the UGC and the State Government
could not arrive at a policy decision on the Commission’s recommendation, the College had
to wait for several years before it was granted in the year 1978. The Principal’s annual reports
of the college presented on the occasion of the Annual Day and preserved in the archives of
the Century old Daniel Poor Memorial Library vouchsafe that the college was waiting for
autonomy as if the child was waiting for its mother!
Rationale for Reforms
Teaching should lead to learning, and learning empowers learners intellectually with
knowledge and professionally with employment. Quantum and quality of learning need to be
assessed scientifically for verifying and certifying the level of learner’s acquisition of
knowledge, competencies and skills. Hence, teaching without testing in higher education is
not a viable proposition. Teaching without testing is an act of sterility while testing without
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teaching is an exercise in futility. Both these academic activities are integral components of
academics in higher education. Testing is beneficial to both teachers and learners in certain
well-defined ways. For instance, it is a feedback to both of them as far as the quality of
teaching and learning is concerned. Testing and its consequent grading or marking provide an
index to learners’ achievement in the chosen subject at an appropriate level to the prospective
employer. In tune with changing times and market expectations, curricular objectives and
evaluation methods should become socially relevant and scientifically valid. Hence, the need
for reforms in examination!
Something Rotten in the Domain of Examination
All is not well with the present system of examination. For instance, many academics
are sceptical about it and they call for the abolition of examinations altogether. They do not
find it serving any useful purpose other than for awarding grades. Students complain that the
entire educational system is examination-oriented, and it thus discourages effective, creative
learning. It does not provide space for doing which is the powerful mode of learning. On the
other hand, the prospective employers feel that most of the university graduates are not
employable though their grades indicate that they are brilliant and capable. Graduates lack
skills and competencies required for work, they observe. But some of the most difficult
questions that are partially answered or fully skipped are: What is testing? What does a test
test? What should a test test? How frequently should tests be conducted? What kinds of
question papers are reliable: essay type or objective type or a combination of both? What is
the role of external examiners who have not taught the course to a particular class of
students? Shouldn’t the question-setter be the evaluator? What is the role of the course
teacher in the evaluation process? Who assesses the longitudinal growth of learners? These
questions need to be addressed dispassionately with an open mind.
Mostly, senior teachers pine for what was prevalent before the introduction of
semester pattern in which they treated the conduct of examination as an optional work of a
teacher to be performed at the end of academic year. Young teachers prefer semester patters
as they are mostly its products, but with the same attitude toward the conduct of examinations
and tests. Tests and examinations are usually in the form of a few (preferably 5x20 marks
pattern) essay questions that include mathematical problems, and/or some short/paragraph
questions. The nature of these questions is such that it tests the memorized knowledge
imparted through lectures and textbooks. Parents place a high premium on their children’s
memory for a successful examination; teachers consider it an easy way of testing if students
have ‘caught’ the points that they ‘delivered’ in the classroom; students are convinced that
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the best way to show respect to their teachers is to reproduce what they had listened to in the
class or memorized from the text prescribed; institutions treat it an economical way of
conducting the examinations.
The present system of examination followed in most universities is characterized by
plethora of defects and deficiencies. Some of them are:
i. It concentrates heavily on testing students’ ability to reproduce memorized
textbook and/or lecture information;
ii. The question paper indicates meagre coverage of the syllabus;
iii. It does not test to what extent students have internalized the learning inputs;
iv. It does not test any of the cognitive skills starting from the lower order to higher
order skills as listed in the Bloom’s taxonomy: knowing, understanding, applying,
analysing, synthesising, and creating;
v. Questions are not clearly stated;
vi. Examiners are carried away by the expressive skills of students who have no
depth and breadth of knowledge in the subject;
vii. There is a strong belief that convergent thinking is preferable to divergent thinking
and therefore there can be one universal approach to teaching, learning, testing,
and responding;
viii. Questions do not align with the specific outcomes of learning of each course;
ix. Marking is highly subjective; and
x. There is no transparency as far as the expectations of examiners and examinees
are kept in the dark.
The list can go on expanding if any well-meaning stakeholder critiques the system. What
matters in the present context is not the autopsy of the dead or dying system, but sensitivity
and urgency to replace it with a more appropriate and suitable one in tune with pressures and
expectations of either internationally comparable institutes of higher learning or demands of
the employers or the needs of the country.
At this juncture, it is not only interesting but also relevant to note that traditional
examination system elsewhere has declared some eminent people “failed” or “of low ability.”
However, they have enriched the world by their contribution later in their life. For instance,
Einstein ‘was failed’ in high schools Mathematics; Maynard Keynes ‘scored’ lowest marks in
Economics in the British Civil Service examination; Gregor Mendel ‘failed’ in Biology twice
and the second time his examiner wrote that Mendel “lacks insight and the requisite clarity of
knowledge”; Winston Churchill, Oliver Goldsmith (bottom of his B.A class), Walter Scott
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(his professor at Edinburgh University remarked, “Dunce he was and dunce he would
remain”), Jonathan Swift, James Watt, Isaac Newton… The list can go on. We, teachers-
cum-examiners, should ponder over our evaluation methods. What do we classify and certify
our learners? On what basis do we do it? What authority do we have to do so?
Affiliating System
The roots of the present system of examination can be traced back to the colonial
times when the British educational system was introduced in India either in response to
Indian demands or with the administrators’ colonial agenda of subjugating the subjects. The
utilitarian objective of training Indians for employment in government guided the rulers and
educationists. Hence, the most dominant Indian thought about education was deeply
embedded in their psyche that it was the only key to prosperity and development. But
education was too literary, and it prepared students for hardly anything beyond employment
in clerical or teaching professions. The whole educational system was heavily dominated by a
rigid system of examinations.
When universities were started in 1857, they were not teaching and research
universities, but affiliating and examining universities. Colleges were not centres of learning
but only for coaching in subjects prescribed by universities for examinations. The whole
system of secondary education was dominated by the ideal that every student who entered a
secondary school should prepare themselves for tertiary education. The theory was that a
university existed mainly, if not solely, to pass students through examinations. Paradoxically,
England changed its affiliating system a year after it was introduced in India, but free India
even after 70 years of independence could not shed this ‘afflicting’ and ‘debilitating’
affiliating system.
However, some of the inherent features (defects) of the Indian intellect had been its
total reliance on the memory and its incapacity for reasoning from observed facts. The
indigenous system of higher education in the pathashalas and the madrassahs is a relic of the
middle ages. It was dominated by religion confined to a small minority of the total
population, and it was absolutely divorced from the modern developments in science. But in
the ancient tradition, education was regarded as the most important tool for self-realization.
The British education has added another dimension to this faith. Education is regarded as the
most powerful instrument of national development. Education Commission (1964-66) rightly
observed that the destiny of India is now being shaped in her classrooms.
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Recommendations of Major Education Commissions in Independent India

Where to make a beginning about examination reforms? This question has been
constantly and conscientiously addressed by all educationists in their commission reports.
The following are the reports of the three major education commissions in free India.
University Education Commission (1948-49) recommended reforms in the examination
system in order to attach value to work of the students all through the year, and suggested the
introduction of objective tests.
Secondary Education Commission (1952) recommended that the traditional system of
examinations should be replaced by modern methods of evaluation. The new method of
evaluation should provide a realistic appraisal of the students’ progress throughout their
career, and should not be only a test of memory, but a measure of their educational growth.
Education Commission (1964-66) recommended drastic changes in curricula, teaching
methods, and evaluation. It mooted the idea of creating autonomous colleges and
experimental schools which would be free from the shackles of external examinations.
Cosmetic Changes in Examination System
Is it true that Indian higher education has just retained the colonial examination
system? Not really! Definitely, there have been changes but they are only cosmetic and
therefore inadequate. It has not fully realized the importance of the course teacher in the
examination process. Again, it has not made any paradigm shift from the test of memory to
that of skills and competencies.
Non-semester Vs Semester System
Until the introduction of semester system in the early 1970s, the three year degree
course had a very peculiar examination system. Students were tested in their majoring course
only at the end of the three year programme, and they were examined in languages and
ancillary subjects at the end of the second year while there was absolutely no examination at
the end of the first year. Semester system introduced major examination reforms. For
instance, examination was conducted in all the courses at the end of the semester and
continuous internal assessment in each of the courses through out the semester. But 75:25 per
cent weigh was given to external and internal examinations respectively. Moreover, the CIA
was not taken very seriously in several colleges with the result that every student was given a
minimum of 18 out of 25 marks (72%) in the internal tests. It resulted in an undesirable and
incredible correlation between End of Semester Summative Examination and CIA. One of the
popular complaints from teachers and students alike was that students were victimized by the
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misuse of the CIA provision. In the course of time, some universities retained the semester
pattern without the CIA at the undergraduate level.
Academic Autonomy
In 1978, academic autonomy was conferred nationally on eight colleges that had
either prepared or asked for such a status. The nature and character of autonomous colleges
differ from college to college. It depends on how each of them conceptualized it as an
alternative to the ailing affiliating system, and accordingly how they prepared for autonomy.
Each of these colleges introduces changes in the examination system from time to time on the
basis of its own experiment with autonomy. One common feature of all these autonomous
colleges is that they all stabilized the CIA successfully and rationalized its components. Some
of the components are short tests of one hour duration, announced and unannounced oral and
written quizzes of 5-10 minutes duration, individual and group assignments, independent and
group projects, hands-on lab experiments and tests, filed work, paper presentations, seminar
participation, library record maintenance, and community extension work. Above all, equal
weight is also given to the CIA and the End-of-semester examination in some autonomous
colleges including the American College.
Strengths and Limitations of Autonomy
Academic autonomy, if only exercised at the department level (micro-level), proves to
be an alternative to the stifling, affiliating system. It begins with the course teacher, but for
the students. It provides an opportunity for the teacher to identify and assess students’ needs,
prospective employers’ expectations, and the nation’s priorities. It enables the teacher to
classify learners in terms of learning styles and strategies. It removes a feeling of fear
psychosis toward examinations and tests and instils in learners confidence to face quizzes,
tests, and three-hour examinations. It creates friendly partner relationships between the
course teacher and students, but maintains respectable distance between them. It provides a
powerful platform for both these stakeholders to evolve the relevant curriculum. Teachers’
honesty and integrity is highly valued because the edifice of academic autonomy rests on it.
No one questions or guarantees it. It is believed that teachers in the system have them as
natural disposition and no one who has some more administrative power can afford to
question teachers’ honesty lest they themselves are liable to be questioned. No one assumes
‘holier-than-thou’ attitude in the guise of expertise and experience. The destiny of India is
truly decided in the classroom under autonomy without fear or favour. Above all, there is a
personal but objective touch in the examination system because the course teacher is the co-
question-setter and the co-examiner. Students need not feel anxious or stressful about who
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would set the question paper or value their scripts. Their paper and future is in the safe hands
of those who teach them.
However, the main defect of autonomy is that it has not made desired progress in the
domain of basic philosophy of examination. Testing should target the skills that students
should have/would have acquired through knowledge presented to them via classroom
lectures and/or textbooks. A glance at questions papers of these autonomous colleges
indicates that they have either one of the three or all the three types of questions: essay type
that includes mathematical problems, paragraph/short answer type, and objective type. What
is wrong with these is not the type adopted but what they aim at testing. Most of them test
students’ memorised textbook/lecture information independent of the course objectives that
preface each course contents. A cursory glance at the curricular and course objectives of
syllabi of the various disciplines in autonomous colleges reveals that they are not articulated
in terms of what the students would be able to do at the end of the course. In certain extreme
cases, Bloom’s taxonomy has robbed students’ creative and critical thinking altogether.
Question papers are customised according to the level of students because question-setters
continue to believe in one-size-that-fits-all syndrome that has been bequeathed to them by the
British educational system in the nineteenth century.
Course Teacher as Examiner under Autonomy
Under autonomy, the course teacher-students academic partnership is highly valued
and therefore appreciated. Teachers are supposed to involve themselves in conducting action
research on student needs, curriculum designing, syllabus framing, teaching and internally
testing, setting question papers, conducting examination (supervision is part of academic
work), valuing scripts, evaluating their performance, and renewing the curriculum in the light
of students’ performance and feedback. Teachers are involved in constructing educational
objectives of a course at the time of curriculum designing: educational objectives define what
a student learns and not just what the teacher teaches. Educational objectives are a statement
of what students should be able to do at the end of the learning period that they could not do
beforehand. Hence, the course teacher alone knows what to test, and anyone (read external
examiner) who is not involved at the time of curriculum designing can only test to what
extent students have reproduced information from the text. The externals cannot test the
classroom learning experience because they are not part of it. That is the spirit of autonomy.
The UGC, in a seminar held as far back as 1961 stated:
Educational objectives, teaching methods, and examination procedures are all
so interrelated that one cannot change without affecting the others… . If the
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faculties can clearly state the kinds of educational objectives which are
important in present-day India, and can develop methods of helping students
learn to achieve these objectives, examinations can be devised which test for
these objectives (18).
Unfortunately, most of the teachers who are the products of an educational and examination
system that places a high premium on ‘recalling knowledge from memory’ are not free from
the unproductive system.
Examination Demystified
Examination reform requires intelligence, skill, and courage. No one can afford to
doubt the capacity of teachers with their rich experience and expertise in their fields. Skills
can always be developed. What is the need of the hour is courage to try alternatives; courage
to face criticisms of the present examination system; and courage to embark on innovations
after dispassionately analyzing the systems of the past and the present. It demands ingenuity
and willingness to devote time and thought. It is not dropped as manna from the heaven. It is
to be desired and designed by the important and responsible stakeholder of higher
education—teachers. Teachers cannot abdicate their responsibilities as examiners. Whatever
alternatives proposed—short-answer questions, different types of objective type questions,
practical type of questions, non-conventional modes like seminar, paper presentations, field
work, and independent project—should test the skills that the students at the end of a course
would have mastered or acquired as envisaged in the curriculum, and taught through syllabus
and lectures. Grade sheets should be reflective of students’ capacities and competencies
acquired through the course. After all, its indication in the form of ranks, classes, marks, and
grades exerts a deciding influence on the opportunities available to students for further
education or employment. It is, therefore, imperative on the part of teachers to bestow much
care on testing as they do on teaching. A course teacher as examiner certifies the quality of
their product to society. Testing is, therefore, not an option to be chosen or ignored. The
teacher’s role starts with the writing of specific outcomes of learning (educational objectives)
and ends with certification of their students’ achievement.
The reform should be in the direction of devising evaluation methods that involve
students’ intellectual activity. It consists of cognitive skills that are arranged in a hierarchy:
factual knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation or
judgment. It calls for a change in teaching strategies. Students should actively participate in
the learning process other than mere listening to lectures. Teachers are definitely neither
‘deliverers’ of information nor ‘dictators’ of notes. They are neither surveyors nor purveyors
 9

of knowledge. So long as teachers are lecturers or dictators, students do not become learners.
As an old proverb goes, students silently remind the teacher in every class: I hear, and I
forget; I see, and I remember; I do, and I understand. One learns things best only by doing,
and testing should therefore aim at measuring students’ skills of understanding, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating. That is what scholasticism means or industries
demand. These are the unarticulated desires and expectations of parents and they very sadly
mistake these skills for memory.
Reforms at the American College since 1978
The following are some of the highlights of examination reforms that have taken place
over the period of nearly 40 years of exercising autonomy and ten years of preparation for the
same between 1968 and 1978 when the college faculty started its decade-long preparation.
1. Each teacher carries important responsibilities irrespective of expertise and
experience. They own a few courses in the sense that they are responsible for
designing the curriculum, framing the syllabus, teaching the course, evaluating
students internally throughout the semester, identifies external experts as examiners
and forms a panel, sets question papers along with external examiner chosen from the
panel by the controller of examination, supervises the conduct of the examination,
values the scripts along with examiner or separately, takes out average in the presence
of the external, and displays the results with the approval of the Head who acts as the
chairperson of the Board of examiners.
2. Each teacher irrespective of their status is a member of BOS and of the Academic
Council.
3. Student representatives are members of the BOS and the Academic Council where
examination-related matters ranging from question paper pattern to exam reforms are
discussed and decided.
4. Equal weight is given to the CIA and the End-of-semester examinations.
5. CIA is conducted at periodical intervals through out the semester: a minimum of two
written/oral, announced/unannounced quizzes (20 marks), two tests (60 marks), and
two assignments (20 marks) with a view to demystifying the ‘terror and horror’ of
testing. Testing becomes a tool for feedback for both teachers and students. Tests and
quizzes are conducted during the subject hours without cancelling preceding and
succeeding classes so that students need not treat them as ‘serious special’ sessions.
6. June Repeat is one of the bold reforms under autonomy initiated in 1978. Those who
have arrears in November and April end-of-semester examinations and those who are
 10

not permitted to sit for exams in November and April for want of the mandatory 75%
attendance in each course need not wait for the subsequent odd/even semester exams,
but they can appear in June Repeat. It fosters a healthy culture wherein students do
not view examinations as a mode of punishment or reward. Instead, they do
understand that they are the opportunities that they earn for demonstration of their
acquired skills and knowledge for certification and recognition. The government of
Tamil Nadu introduced the same for failed candidates in Board Exams a decade ago
so that they need not waste one full year.
7. Along with the results, scheme of valuation in detail for each course is displayed on
the departmental notice boards for students to familiarize themselves with the
expectations of the examiners and to make appeals for revaluation if necessary.
8. The system of independent double valuation by the course teacher(s) and the external
has replaced the 30 year old cooperative double valuation where the external values
the scripts in consultation with the course teacher(s).
9. A centralized system of external valuation has been introduced with a view to
enhancing transparency and accountability in evaluation while internal valuation by
course teachers is carried out at the departments.
10. Assignment work as a component of continuous internal assessment was dropped on
experimental basis for a while but it has been re-introduced now. This was done with
a view to discouraging students from ‘cut-paste culture’ in the internet era.
11. The office of the Dean of Academic Affairs, which used to take care of the conduct of
CIA and End-of-Semester Examinations in addition to initiating academic policies,
has been bifurcated and an office of the Controller of Examinations has been created
with a deputy controller and assistant controller to assist the Controller. This has
become necessary in view of the introduction of new courses. The College is currently
offering 8 PhD, 9 MPhil, 16 PG, 34 UG programmes, and 4 Diploma courses under
Community College.
12. An Evaluation Monitoring Cell with the principal, vice-principal, controller, all deans,
all additional deans and deputy controller as members has been formed to constantly
monitor the quality of evaluation methods adopted by different departments with the
approval of the Academic Council
13. Three sessions of examination are conducted every examination day: 8 a.m. to 11
a.m.; 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. to enable students with backlog in
 11

different semester to write, and to successfully implement the educational objectives

under the CBCS.
14. Postgraduate students and MPhil scholars are given the privilege of preparing their
own examination schedule.
15. Examination results are scientifically analyzed by the office of the Dean of Students,
discussed in the Evaluation Monitoring Cell, Senatus, and presented in the Awards
Committee. The principal with the assistance of the Heads of the departments chalk
out remedial measures wherever needed.
16. Rules and regulations governing examinations including right to appeal are in the
public domain to ensure greater transparency.
Conclusion
Examination reforms are a never-ending on-going programme of action in the interest
of students in higher education. Teachers have the onerous responsibility in the system and
special commitment toward students. Any innovation or renovation in examination reforms
requires cooperation and consent of teachers first. The best is yet to be experienced.

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