AUTONOMY: AN EXPRESS TO DOOMSDAY?

“Oh! I’m xyz madam’s favorite, so I guess it’ll be fine and I don’t need to worry about the corrections.”...... That sir is really sweet; he’ll give me a few marks more to reach 90.”…. How many conversations have you come across as similar as this? The aforementioned is beyond doubt self explanatory, clearly underlining a major understated flaw of autonomy but let’s just move on to more pressing issues. Well!!! NMAM Institute of Technology, Nitte, established in 1986 is finally autonomous and aren’t we happy?? You bet! We are. Nevertheless it’s just a matter of time before the true story unfurls itself.
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Everyone knows an autonomous decree can make or break a university’s quality of education. A matter of rejoice is that we’ll be no longer under VTU and that we can set the syllabus and evaluate the students as we please. Under the new system, the students get only two sessionals of 30 marks each which will comprise and average out of 30. The remaining 20 marks lies with lecturer who divides it on the basis of discipline, interaction, assignments etc.

 

But wait! THINK!!! Look at the first year results…So many students with GPA of 9? How?? Even the students at the IITs go crazy trying to keep their GPA at quarter of 9 and look at us here…in a class of 65 people 35-40 people have their GPA higher than 7! Universally a GPA of 9 or even 7 or 8 is considered to be brilliant…a pride of an intelligent hard working person, a perfect ideal student, someone who’d be branded as a nerd with his nose in the books all the time! Going by the current situation, we could definitely learn a thing or two from the western universities which have adopted grading ages ago. One cannot argue over the benefits of grading. To be succinct, it eliminates unhealthy competition, stress and strikes a perfect balance between academics and other activities. Unless and until the students are evaluated properly, the grades will lose their meaning.

On an interesting note, the autonomy is followed by a huge amount of fund from the World Bank, more than what you and I can ever fathom. One can only wonder if the funds are being utilized for developing the real “education”. With the fee structure now taller than an average skyscraper, it should definitely not become some sort of a deal that majority of them should be assured of excellent GPAs in the longer run! The system designed should be dependent on what is really there inside your head, how hard you work and not on how much money you’re willing to pay. Moreover, the funds SHOULD be used to provide excellent faculty else even the most infallible evaluating system will fail to save us from the impending disaster!

I’m definitely not a maniac on rampage nor envious of so many people doing really well but then again it’s a matter worth pondering over that no other evaluating system and no other college following grading gets results as attractive as ours with minimal changes to the previously existent system. The stakes are high, after all it’s the entire future of a young person. On the contrary, most of the students under the autonomy feel that it tests only their memory and does not really gauge their level of understanding or application skills for that matter. The real picture will be clear only after the students finish their first semester under their branch. So, it’s still not late to use the autonomy to our advantage and empower the student with knowledge. Make the process of getting an 8, a 9 or even a 10 more rigorous. Otherwise the grades will be as worthless as ever.

After all a smooth sea never made a skilled mariner!!

P.S: If someone concerned with this entire grading-autonomy thing ever happens to read this post please understand that YOU DO NOT GIVE MARKS UNDER GRADING SYSTEM just plain ‘ol grades! The students never know what their marks are, just the grade!

BOTTOMLINE: grading is NOT supposed to make our lives easier. If it does, it’s probably not working!