Reforming the Indian Board Examination System
How would a vision for truly transforming the Indian education landscape unfold? I argue it should begin with transformation of board examinations
The board exams structure in India are not a comprehensive indicator of the key learning outcomes intended by the Indian Education system and this needs to change.
In this article, we look at the needs for reforming the board education system because it doesn’t fully capture the learning outcomes as is evident by the gap in pass rates and learning ability reports. Moreover, with India at the cusp of crossing the median age of 30 soon with an irreversible demographic trend, we see that the window to reform the education system is closing as we transition from a young nation to a middle aged nation in the next two decades. To unlock vital long term economic growth, therefore, India needs another vital watershed moment such as the ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ moment of 2000s when we aimed at increasing our enrollment rates.
Prioritizing learning outcomes led development would be the next big problem (root cause), which if solved would enable the resolution of several branched problems plaguing the Indian Education sector.
We take a short look at the Bloom’s Taxonomy Model that could be used as a source for understanding the learning outcomes based approach. Using the available alternatives of Continuous Learning Development, Adaptive Assessment framework, Self paced learning and key project management requirements, an Integrated Learning solution framework is proposed that combines key aspects of each of the alternatives taking into account essential criteria.
The Challenge
The Indian education system as its core goals was always aligned to increasing enrolment rates ensuring pass rates at any cost and prioritizing rote learning over conceptual testing and thinking patterns. As enrolment rates grew, the competitive nature of board exams grew as well. Over the years, it has become normative of children to compete for ‘marks’ as the board results were the most well-known signal for future career paths. The resultant excess focus on rote learning, memorization, teaching methods getting aligned to maximize scores resulted in divergence between actual learning capabilities and passing rates. The curriculum is designed to test memorization and lower order thinking skills.
The gap in outcomes and pass rates can be viewed through the data. As per Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018, 50% of Class VIII kids can only answer questions that are at a level of 2nd or 3rd grade. However, in Class X board exams the pass rates range between 70% or 90%.1 2
The National Achievement Survey (NAS) conducted by NCERT measures the learning achievements across three skills: Remembering, Understanding and Applying3. These skills are however, only base foundational skills. They do not address the needs of developing higher order cognitive, problem solving and critical thinking skills.
The NAS 2020 report for learning levels for 10th standard also reveals further issues. Over 67% of students in India for example scored below 35% on NAS survey in Mathematics.4
These gaps highlight two fundamental problems in the Board examination system:
The learning levels are not being captured by the exams accurately given the gap in actual learned capacity and pass rates
The curriculum assessment is not aligned to better learning outcomes and needs course correction.
This design of teaching, building, developing and testing the students on the curriculum can be largely explained through the Bloom’s Taxonomy: A model of learning outcomes developed by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist in 1956. The model describes three necessary axes of learning: cognitive, affective and behavioral.5
The curriculum and assessment frameworks should therefore be focusing on developing the three top of the pyramid skills as well: Creating. Evaluating and Analyzing.
The Big Vision – NEP 2020 and India’s Demographic Profile
The National Education Policy 2020 of India puts the focus on learning outcomes, early childhood care and development among other reforms it intends to implement. The challenge is that it is difficult to implement multiple large-scale reforms in sync. The requisite state capacity that needs to be built would be a crucial stage prior to implementing these reforms. Andrews, Pritchett and Woolcock in their book Building State Capacity call it ‘premature load bearing’6.
That said, India’s needs are quite urgent when the long-term vision is taken into account. In 2015, median age in India was 26.8 years and is expected to increase to 38 years by 2050.
India is in a critical transition phase where in coming decades it will transition from a young to a middle age country. India’s economic growth is therefore, tied to how well its population is well trained, skilled in mathematical problem solving, critical thinking and other cognitive and learning abilities.
It is imperative, therefore, that when India does cross the threshold, there is critical mass of innovative problem solvers in the ecosystem. There are second order effects of a population well trained and equipped to solve complex problems and with avenues available to pursue next generation economic, social and technological challenges.
In 2017, over 10 million students appeared for various board examinations. Transforming the way we educate, assess, and inform these students of their learning capabilities will enable them to enhance their skill sets, choose better careers and contribute to economic growth7.
A reform policy oriented at addressing the fundamental challenges and closing the learning gaps in the next 10 years by 2030 would go a long way in securing India’s economic future. Therefore, it is important to evaluate potential solutions, alternatives and key criteria that would allow policymakers to narrow down design a solution that can address the underlying challenges.
Potential Solutions to addressing challenges and gaps
In this section we look at potential solutions and criteria that would be required to best assess the feasibility of the potential policy intervention. In order to address the several layers of the identified problem, we would need an integrated learning ecosystem which augments learning outcomes through an interplay of technology, capacity and assessment frameworks with Continuous Learning & Development as its foundation.
Designing a program that combines the elements of these interventions and building a multi-pronged approach with the following framework could become a potential solution.
In implementing such a solution it would be important to consider state capacity, time taken to achieve these outcomes, scalability, key learning outcomes, and expenditure (costs) involved.
An ILE Cell
A specialized unit/ nodal agency under the aegis of Ministry of Education could be tasked with implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the outcomes of the program, managing stakeholders, developing a new continuous learning scoring index and learnings system along with managing the effectiveness of the program based on five previously defined criteria. The cell could operate as a Program Implementation or a Management Unit (PIU/PMU).
Continuous Learning & Development (CLD)
Firstly, the biggest challenge at the heart of the problem is the gap in learning outcomes. Addressing the root cause problem, will allow us to tackle and mitigate several other problems that branch out of it.
Developing a Continuous Learning & Development (CLD) Ecosystem would therefore go a long way to ensuring development along the defined learning outcomes, measuring the progress and informing the students in the correct manner on strategies to improve abilities. Continuous Learning Development Ecosystems are systems where students are assessed over multiple relevant abilities over a period of time in an adaptive manner.
Building customizable Learning Outcomes, with related Competencies and Indicators (LOCI) (keeping in mind the Bloom’s Taxonomy model shared above) that help assess overall improvement and performance of individuals will allow various stakeholders involved to accurately measure and achieve the intended learning targets.
Further enabling a Self paced learning environment for students who can opt for such measures may also enable in meeting customized learning targets that suit each student’s needs.
Assessment Framework
Board exams as a single point source of evaluation are inefficient, add stress, anxiety to students, promulgate a culture of rote learning and reduce the focus on application oriented learning among students. Moreover, putting the entire burden of evaluation on a single examination also reduces the scope of measuring true progress made by individuals over time, limiting the use of such a one time measure score for truly assessing the capabilities of students. In order to address this, introducing continuous adaptive assessments could be a potential solution.
The key features of such an assessments system could be:
Definable, customizable and measurable learning outcomes that are set based on a combination of current learning gaps and student’s aspirations.
2 examinations with equal weightage, taken flexibly and a scoring matrix based on those learning outcomes and not just the score in individual subjects.
The scoring mechanism in the final report cards of children may include a Rubrics assessment8 of key skills gained.
Allowing flexibility to appear for these examinations across a window (say 3 months) in a year in computer adaptive formats9.
Introducing peer-to-peer learning, cross functional assessments, and practical problem solving as methods of assessments
One of the advantages of this framework is that it would be implementable across different board structures given its flexibility.
India is at the cusp of an irreversible demographic trend. The coming decade where India transitions into a middle aged country would therefore require a deeper more targeted development of the younger generation. Every year more than 10 million10 children sit for board examinations across the nation. By 2030, close to 100 million kids would have sat for both secondary and senior secondary education examinations and would be entering the higher education streams.
Creating a dynamic system that allows them to tap into their potential, choose relevant careers, and become core problem solvers and innovators will create ripple effect across the economy with its positive effects lasting decades. 20 years ago, a similar vision of ‘School Chalein Hum’ campaign under the visionary leadership of the then PM Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had addressed a major problem of abysmal enrolment ratios in schools. The next phase of higher order reform in the education sector is poised to come at addressing the gaps in learning outcomes and the board structure.
Thank You Note:
This article is the result of Policy Making Workshop conducted by Takshashila Institution’s GCPP-29 cohort. I would like to thank following individuals (and share due credit with them) who were part of this group exercise which eventually led to development of this framework: Jacob Baby, Gauri Satpute, Vikram Kapoor, Juhi Mohan, Chaitali Pathak, Sara Vernekar, Vasudha Rungta and Sakshe Vasudeva.
Disclaimer:
This framework was created as a part of the Policy simulation exercise and may be reproduced or referenced in other works subject to condition of referencing, citation to the article and the individuals involved in development of the idea including the author.
P.S. A Tip for policy wonks: The entire exercise apart from the root cause analysis, also used Bardach’s eight fold path which is an extremely powerful tool worth looking into for aspiring public policy analysts.
Footnotes:
https://www.india.com/education/board-examinations-2017-over-1-crore-students-appear-for-exams-is-india-equipped-to-provide-higher-education-to-all-2148938/
https://teaching.berkeley.edu/resources/assessment-and-evaluation/design-assessment/rubrics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/computerized-adaptive-testing