Test report: Editorial on the NTA’s failure to reward genuine learning

Examinations should test conceptual understanding. This was the core message of the report by the parliamentary standing committee on education called “Reforms and strengthening of National Testing Agency”. The report is important because it goes to the root of some of the major concerns of the young people whose protests against paper leaks led to the resignation of the former Union education minister. The standing committee was addressing problems of the undergraduate medical, engineering and university entrance tests. It recommended that the education department should ensure that the question papers of these examinations tested the conceptual understanding of subjects in the curriculum taught in school instead of testing rapid recall and shortcut techniques taught at coaching centres as is done now. Questions based on measurable standards to ensure the assessment of genuine learning should be set. According to the report, coaching centres create a parallel curriculum that differs from the school curricula set by the National Council of Educational Research and Training or state boards. The goal of the parallel curriculum is success in examinations, not knowledge. The private coaching industry built around the Joint Entrance Examination, the National Eli­gibility cum Entrance Test and the Common University Entrance Test thrives on the fact that the NTA system prioritises the ability to respond to certain fixed question patterns and practised answers based on earlier question papers. That is, the regurgitation of answers learnt through repetition in coaching centres is rewarded.

The report, without mentioning it, has gone to the heart of the corruption which prompted the protests earlier. It raises the unspoken question: why should the NTA reward the shallow techniques taught in coaching centres on a parallel curriculum and not candidates’ attempts to express their understanding of what they learnt in school? The goal of education — the development of the intellect and the growth of learning — is defeated by the encouragement given to learnt-up answers to ‘expected’ or ‘common’ questions. What is the NTA’s understanding of education? The report points out the problem and recommends the solution but further steps are needed to reach it. The countrywide scale of the problem is a result of centralising undergraduate entrance examinations. So dismantling the coaching industry and reforming the examination system requires the government’s political will and determined action.