‘End normalisation of marks’: Stakeholders tell Centre’s high-level exam reform panel
The panel headed by former ISRO chief R Radhakrishnan has received responses over 37,000 from students, parents, coaching institutions among others.
The Centre’s high-level exam reform panel has received various suggestions from students and other stakeholders to establish norms addressing irregularities and lapses in the exam process, with a strong call to end the normalisation of marks.
Some suggestions also call for checking the infrastructure at exam centres and ensuring proper communication to candidates in case of schedule changes.
The panel headed by former ISRO chief R Radhakrishnan has received responses over 37,000 from students, parents, coaching institutions, school teachers, academic institutions and career counsellors.
The panel is scheduled to submit its report within two months. It was tasked with reviewing the functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and seeking suggestions from stakeholders, particularly students and parents, between June 27 and July 7 through the MyGov platform.
Other members of the panel include former AIIMS Delhi director Randeep Guleria, Central University of Hyderabad vice-chancellor BJ Rao, professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras K Ramamurthy, People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal, IIT Delhi Dean of Student Affairs Aditya Mittal and MoE joint secretary Govind Jaiswal.
The panel was constituted in June following protests by students and parents over alleged irregularities in the medical entrance examination NEET and the PhD entrance exam NET.
The NEET exam is under scrutiny for various irregularities including alleged leaks, while UGC-NET was cancelled after the ministry received information that the exam’s integrity had been compromised. Both cases are currently being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Two other exams – CSIR-UGC NET and NEET PG – were cancelled at the last moment as a pre-emptive step.
“Some aspirants have suggested laying down clear norms in case of any lapses. Like the grace marks issue, aspirants want to know what will happen in a given scenario, what the options are and what formula will be used. There are also complaints about some centres being too far off and not having the required infrastructure,” PTI quoted a source as saying.
“There are concerns about the normalisation process too. Some aspirants have suggested against it, some have asked for transparency in the process so scores are neither inflated nor drastically reduced,” the source has been further quoted.
The committee has also been tasked with examining the existing security protocols related to the setting of the papers and other processes for various examinations and making recommendations to enhance the robustness of the system.
With inputs from PTI