Topic 1 : Not by rote
Introduction: Today, millions of students in India are trying to cram as much information as possible with the board examinations going on. They are reading off flash cards, memorising key events and formulae that might crop up during the exams. Open book examination (OBE) will make it redundant.
What is an Open Book Exam (OBE)?
- The National Education Policy 2020 has recommended implementing various modes of exams for the benefit of students.
- This has created a renewed interest in open book examinations among policymakers, national and state boards.
- The CBSE has decided to conduct a comprehensive study as a pilot for students from classes 9 to 12 to assess the viability of implementing OBE in the context of the Indian educational framework.
- This experiment will be conducted in select CBSE schools.
- From the time that NEP was released, various initiatives have been carried out to assess different aspects of student learning to transform the culture of assessment.
- The highlights include a focus on core concepts, high-order and foundational skills, self and peer assessment, and case-based questions.
Why OBE was suggested over normal examination?
- With the emphasis on 21st-century skills of critical and creative thinking, some educational experts suggest open-book exams, which will assess how students apply their knowledge to real-life problems instead of what they have memorised.
- Currently, the secondary and board exams are using up valuable time for learning with excessive coaching and preparation.
- This forces students to learn a narrow band of content in a single stream.
- To encourage holistic development, discouraging coaching culture and rote learning for exam preparation is essential.
- Whether it is a board examination made easier or an open book exam, it should primarily test the core capacities and competencies of students rather than content memorisation.
Significance of OBE
- To create child-centric evaluation systems, open book exams require national boards and teachers to be creative not only in designing innovative assessments, but also in using novel methods in classroom transactions.
- OBE helps to assess learner readiness, apply course content to given scenarios, analyse case studies and connect content with real-world situations.
- They allow questions where skills determine the appropriate application.
- The ability to apply knowledge is overlooked in the current system.
- OBEs are often harder than regular exams.
- Students need to understand the material, apply themselves, analyse and synthesise information in a given timeline.
- This method of demonstrating knowledge is far more challenging than putting down memorised facts.
How the success of OBE does depend on teachers’ training?
- OBE’s success depends essentially on the quality of teaching.
- These exams are hard to design, and the making of guidelines is less predictable because they assess a more open range of answers.
- Teachers require the necessary skills to design and implement student-centred learning activities in the classroom along with keeping pace with new pedagogies that move from rote to experiential learning.
- This examination will succeed if the mindset of school education along with teacher training is transformed from foundational years upwards.
- A top-down approach to questioning without setting a learning context from childhood will be a challenge.
- In order to bring in OBE, teachers need to be open to new ideas, sift information from relevant data, be technologically enabled, flexible and enrich learners through experiences which are life-ready.
- The reality is that exams today are at odds with the focus on problem-solving and critical and creative thinking.
- The best exam would probably be that where a student is given information and the opportunity to develop planning, organisation and collaborative skills.
Way forward
- Education and schools stand at a crossroads.
- In many pockets, the promises of fairness, equity and social mobility have not been kept.
- With the coming in of the NEP, we can engage everyone in a system which will combine value and equity.
- Teachers should be encouraged to create innovative platforms that discover value-creating ideas through digital transformation, design and deliver competency-based learning and foster reflective discourse in classrooms.
Conclusion: Assessments, guidance, and measurement strategies need to be applied to effectively monitor and guide students throughout their school journey. Perhaps, then OBE may become a reality.
Topic 2 : An intelligent balance
Introduction: Last week, lawmakers in the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Artificial Intelligence Act, putting the landmark legislation on track to take effect by the end of the year.
Why EU’s law on AI is special?
- The European Union’s new law is the first comprehensive framework for governing a technology that has seen explosive growth in recent years, dominating headlines and stoking both excitement and fear about the future.
Provisions of the AI law
- Taking a horizontal, risk-based approach that will apply across sectors of AI development, the EU AI Act classifies the technology into four categories: Prohibited, high-risk, limited-risk and minimal-risk.
- Systems that violate or threaten human rights through, for example, social scoring — creating “risk” profiles of people based on “desirable” or “undesirable” behaviour — or mass surveillance are banned outright.
- High-risk systems, which have a significant impact on people’s lives and rights, such as those used for biometric identification or in education, health and law enforcement, will have to meet strict requirements, including human oversight and security and conformity assessment, before they can be put on the market.
- Systems involving user interaction, like chatbots and image-generation programmes, are classified as limited-risk and are required to inform users that they are interacting with AI and allow them to opt out.
- The most widely used systems, which pose no or negligible risk, such as spam filters and smart appliances, are categorised as minimal-risk.
- They will be exempt from regulation, but will need to comply with existing laws.
EU’s AI law will inspire the world
- Like the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, which influenced data privacy regulation around the world, the impact of the EU’s AI Act is expected to be felt globally.
- However, the history of EU technology legislation, including GDPR, which has been criticised for being regulation-heavy and stifling innovation, urges caution.
India’s quest to regulate AI
- For India, where the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has been working on a framework for responsible AI, the challenge would be to acknowledge and address the risks posed by the emerging technology, such as the proliferation of deep fakes, without hobbling its potential for improving lives or enhancing the promise of India’s start-up ecosystem.
- In this regard, the ministry’s replacement last week of its March 1 advisory, which required generative AI companies to seek government permission for deploying “untested” systems, with a new one that drops this condition, is welcome.
- In a February 2021 approach document, NITI Aayog had proposed certain overarching principles for the development of 'responsible AI' (the "Responsible AI Report").
- Pursuant to a press release dated July 20, 2023, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ("TRAI") announced a set of recommendations on leveraging AI and 'Big Data' in the telecommunications sector.
Conclusion: Going forward, the task for the government would be to safeguard citizens’ rights, while continuing to make room for the transformative possibilities of AI.