Be it filing applications for various exams or paying one’s bills, the Internet is literally turning the world paperless. And with the launch of the national online examination system recently, which can be adopted by colleges and universities to make tests hassle-free and more transparent, it seems that even the government is walking the same path.
While the conventional paper-oriented manual examination system is time-consuming and unfriendly to the environment, is the online examination system the way ahead? Aseem Sachdeva, 18, is hopeful that the online examination system will pave the way for a fair, fast and efficient examination and evaluation process.
“Writing one’s papers online will certainly be a breakthrough in the examination system. It would mean that we are actually keeping pace with the technology,” says the Class 12 student.
According to the authorities, in this system, the time taken from publication of advertisement to declaration of the final results will be around 45 days for large recruitment drives. The system also permits candidates to select the date, time slot and venue. So, the online system can be adopted by colleges and universities for conducting national-level entrance tests. “It would not only mean less wait for the results, but students can rest assured that evaluation was done in a transparent manner. It would certainly save students and teachers a lot of time,” says Faizan Kadri, 24, an engineering student.
The system has been extensively tested for more than one year and has been found to be very satisfactory. “We have had mishaps like server crashes or data deletion in the recent past. We hope that the system has been checked on that front,” says Neeti Prasad, a Delhi-based teacher.
However, CBSC councellor Dr Geetanjai Kumar feels that the move should be introduced at a very slow pace. “There are umpteen kinds of schools in our country and I come across students, even in metros, who even today aren’t comfortable working on computers. For them the conventional system works better as they are used to it. We have seen students struggle with AIEEE online entrance exams. The new system may prove to be stressful for them. Online exams surely hold promise, but should only be made optional as of now,” she says.