A centralised, Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)-based entrance exam for admissions into central universities through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) has serious long-term consequences for the quality of learning and has to be given the attention it deserves.
The task of evolving an optimal testing strategy for the millions seeking higher education is formidable, but the process must foster intellectual abilities and not be reduced to a techno-managerial exercise.
The move towards an MCQ-based entrance exam for admission to BSc and BA is being justified on the grounds that there are different kinds of school boards with varying grading systems, so another common entrance exam to standardise plus two grades is required.
But the solution implemented is disproportionately drastic; compiling the boards and their grading pattern could help develop a system of assigning weights and the problem could be dealt with using a mathematical or statistical model, rather than an expensive shift to a humongous exam machinery.
The most unwise move, however, is to make the MCQ-based CUET mandatory for admission into the PhD program in the social sciences. It is heartening to note that the Vice Chancellor of JNU, Professor Santishree Pandit, has raised the concern that MCQs are not appropriate for postgraduate and PhD admissions.
In the social sciences, MCQ-based questions only test the memory of dates and names of authors, thinkers and the title of their books, and do not measure any conceptual understanding or research aptitude.
Academic institutions anywhere in the world assess the candidate for the potential to think originally about a given problem and design the research, not for memorising some names and books.
The MCQ-based entrance exam is likely to marginalize creatively minded youngsters who are not oriented to the three-hour competitive exams but are capable of advanced thinking and problem-solving through original methods which take more time.
If our system failed to recognize Ramanujan, the mathematical genius, simply because he did not do well in English, we are not getting any better with this MCQ culture.
IITs may have to manage a huge number of applicants through an MCQ-based entrance, but should we not keep alternative channels open for those creative minds who do not want to go the IIT way? We should remember that the acclaimed Mars Orbiter Mission was carried out largely by university-educated scientists and technologists.
An argument made in favor of an MCQ-based entrance exam is that it overcomes the subjectivity in assessment that essay type questions lead to.
But this is far from the truth. A high level of bias, stupidity, ignorance and subjectivity can creep into the selection of questions and in the answering choices offered in MCQs, especially in social sciences. Moreover, the names and books taught by an expert from an institution may have a greater chance of being included in its entrance exam question paper, leading to nepotism and eliminating the chances for students from outside who studied other texts.
A centralized entrance examination is also believed to even out the quality of university education in this country, but that is not the solution to asymmetry because the same faculty will be setting the questions. Even if a central pool of experts is created, there is a limit on the number of new multiple choice questions that can be set in the social sciences and so they will be setting the same type of memory-based questions year after year and that will become predictable fodder for private coaching classes, to be memorised.
The quality of higher education depends not on centralised entrance examinations, but on the abilities of the faculty, their research achievements and commitment to teaching. As long as the recruitment process in the universities is steeped in corruption and bias, no amount of entrance exams can redeem the situation.
The huge expenditure on NTA (National Testing Agency) conducted entrances will eat into resources for higher education. More money will be spent on the logistics of a centralised gargantuan entrance exam, while universities suffer from acute lack of funds for crucial academic activities like fieldwork, laboratory, workshops, guest lectures, study tours and funds for the library.
It is possible to develop a testing template for admission to research degrees that consists of a composite collection of short answers and essay type answers, with about 25 percent of MCQs relating to comprehension of passages from texts of general interest, with due weightage to the research proposal and its defense in the interview.
The introduction of MCQ-based entrance exams for PhD actually makes the life of faculty and students a lot easy and comfortable - no reason why we should clamor for more labor intensive ways of learning and assessing.
In future, faculty are likely to think in terms of teaching how to crack MCQs for admission and avoid engagement with fundamental and independent understanding of phenomena, leading to a vicious cycle reinforcing loss of quality in higher education and research.
The MCQ-based assessment is bound to cause much de-skilling among the faculty as well. In fact, recent feedback on NEET-coached doctors mentions how they get used to learning with notes for an exam, rather than attending to actual patients.
No country that seeks the intellectual enrichment of its youth will raise the closed book examination to such a high pedestal.
(V.Sujatha is a Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.
