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| LATEST
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06th
February 2010 / Times of India / Pune Edition
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 Automation must for better conduct of exams: Nigavekar
Pune: Former chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC) Arun Nigavekar has called for an elaborate and effective deployment of information and communication technology (ICT) tools for addressing the issues that affect higher education in the country.
He said: Such deployment is imperative for improved teaching, research and management. Similarly, automation must be seen as a critical component towards attaining better conduct of examinations at the university level.
Nigavekar, also a former vice-chancellor (V-C) of the University of Pune (UoP), was delivering the keynote address at a two-day state level seminar on Examination reforms in higher education, which started at the Maharashtra Education Society’s Institute of Management and Career Courses (IMCC) here on Friday.
The seminar has been jointly organised by the IMCC and academic forum Vidyapeeth Vikas Manch to deliberate and work out academic as well as examination reforms that are in tune with the changing requirements of the higher education. Acting V-C of UoP Arun Adsool presided over the session.
Nigavekar said automation is crucial to all aspects of conduct of examinations, starting with the pre-exam processing to appointment of examiners, examination scheduling, question papers printing and distribution and finally, post-exam processing of results.
He said, Reforms in question paper formats and establishment of a larger and comprehensive question bank for random selection of question are needed for improving the quality of examinations.
Referring to deployment of ICT, Nigavekar said, We are facing and would continue to face the problem of numbers, geography and much more than that as we try to keep pace with the speed of globalization. The solution lies in using technology in clever and innovative way in addressing issues that education faces today.
He said, Knowledge is at the core of all development efforts in advancing economic and social well being in all developed, developing and emerging nations. As such, advancement and application of knowledge will be the driving force to economic and social development.
Nigavekar said, The ability of the developed countries to convert education into a tradable commodity has come through the building of successful and well established education and research and development (R&D ) system.
For, this system gave them the capacity to convert relevant and quality education and R&D into business advantage and creation of wealth.
He said, academic reforms based on ICT support are crucial in this context in the country. Blending e-support material in classroom teaching and virtual enhancement of academic infrastructure is must. Similarly , internet literacy for teachers, development of econtent material are important , said Nigavekar.
At institutional level, he also stressed the need for building academic and structural bridge between the conventional and open universities and create flexible and adaptive pace of learning.
In his presidential speech, Adsool said examination should be a systematic approach of the classroom evaluation (cognitive domain) and the large-scale evaluation (non-cognitive domain) of the learner.
A number of abilities such as drive and capacity for hard work, leadership and team work, motivation, quality of imagination, intuition and speculation, use of skills and human qualities should get reflected in the mark list or grade card, he said.
Key officials from all the state universities, deemed universities as well as recognised institutions from across the state are attending the meet.
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