Assessment Practices in Engineering-A Review

Higher Education in our country is being critically watched with great deal of expectations by all stakeholders. More so in the case of engineering domain, which not only is witnessing drastic regulation changes for aligning to global standards but also being sceptically criticised for quality adherence in a non-uniform proliferation scenario. All the regulatory bodies and the course providers have their mechanisms directed towards maintaining quality in engineering education-quality in terms of inputs, processes and consequently outputs. Grades, university ranks, placement records have been traditionally the direct markers for output of a course. These, however, do not completely signify the learning outcomes or the extent of transformation as an engineer, as vindicated by NASSCOM through their statistics of low employability rates amongst engineering graduates. Hence review is required to evaluate the current assessment practices, avoiding pitfalls or system errors which creep in due to familiar reasons, to cite a few-skewed growth in engineering education, shortage of qualified faculty, overemphasis on end-exam over education process, non-uniform quality standards due to environment pressures. These can be systematically eliminated, through greater awareness amongst the faculty to gauge effectively, higher ownership by the student towards learning responsibilities, separate assessment panels at college and university levels to constantly review the practices to increase the accountability. There is a greater need for the higher formations like Higher or Technical Education Commissions to carry out independent research studies to evaluate the learning outcomes over a target duration across the domains of knowledge, skills and attitudes.