Open Book Exams

This may sound unusual but the Indian Higher Education need a serious reform. Students with overburdened workloads are being over pressurized to obtain good result.

The Indian education system focuses more on cramming rather than applying yourself. A lot of time and energy is wasted in mugging up the long tedious and confusing formulae’s. This leads to real time wastage and the main purpose of the education is not solved. Mind is not a vessel to be filled but a place for the fire to be kindled. Knowledge should focus on understanding rather just mugging. Let us consider an example of a Engineering guy, he has to go through large nos. of formulae’s and copious amount of derivations in exams. A good chunk of useful time is wasted on cramming those results. The basic aim of engineering studies is that we are able to solve day to day problem so rather wasting time in cramming. Emphasis should be laid on the proper application of the learned concepts. Why the system wants us to be like a photocopier machine that takes some input and produces the exact reprint of fed data.

India produces some 1 lakh engineers every year, and the number still increasing. The question is....What quality of so called "Engineers" who after four years of undergrad studies don’t know how to write simple programming codes or how a power system operates, the theoretical knowledge is of no use, we find ourselves incapacitated when we join industry after completion of studies. Students don’t have practical exposure. The students are quite oblivious of the modern day technology used in present day world.

So in my views open book examination concept should be introduced and also there must be complete revamp the examination process. More emphasis should be given to practical sessions and application based problem statements rather theoretical questions. Learning theory is important but application of it is a higher order phenomenon, and should be encouraged. Theory without practice is sterile.

Open book exams will have its disadvantages too but it advantages far exceeds it. The education policy makers should give a thought on this subject and also conduct surveys and discussions with top educationist and students on this burning topic.