The Indian educational sector has always made use of the conventional method of conducting examinations mostly with the use of pen and paper. Even the government examinations that are undertaken, make use of pen and paper to conduct examinations consisting of multiple choice questions and written answers. Despite the challenges that are present from the use of this technique it has proved to be effective for a significant period of time. However, the pandemic brought about significant changes in the educational sector which made it apparent that the use of pen and paper examinations is difficult to conduct and hence would lead to the students wasting their year or for the government finding some alternative method to conduct competitive examinations. With the concept of online education gaining popularity in the Indian education market, there were also significant deliberations being made by the government to change the existing pen and paper examinations to the form of online examinations. Currently there are no specific organizations present who can undertake online examinations on a large scale but rather Institutions were working towards online course selling with the objective of supporting students in their educational objectives.
Challenges of using Pen and Paper mode examinations
There are several challenges present which need to be faced by the Indian government when it comes to undertaking examinations through the use of pen and paper mode.
- One of the major challenges that can be highlighted is the fact that with the increasing significance of Climate Change and its impact, conducting pen and paper examinations raises questions regarding the preservation of sustainability in the environment.To facilitate the development of paper, large numbers of trees are cut down on an annual basis that is often considered to be one of the major factors for fast deforestation being observed in the Indian states.
- Another factor that resists challenges is the high costs of printing followed by the dispatch mechanism. In this sector each individual is involved in transcribing the data as most of them come from free written text.It takes a lot of Manpower to transcribe the text and often it has been found that the response rate is sufficiently low and so is the pay.
- There are also challenges included in the form of the leaking of question papers which leads to the cancellation of the entire examination thereby causing the government to lose a large amount of money. Each of these aspects are considered to be the major challenges when it comes to taking pen and paper examinations. In the last few years there has been an increasing popularity observed in the market in the form of online education which has made the government think about using this Momentum to launch online examinations for all the major competitive and Central as well as State Government examinations around the year.
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How can online examination help the government
There are a lot of advantages if the government intends to make use of the online examination mode for the students so that they can easily and at competitive examinations throughout the year, In the form of saving costs and reducing deforestation. The government will need multiple places that house modern technology and Technical devices such as personal computers and laptops based on which the examinations can be undertaken without any issues. For example, currently the Indian banking sector makes use of this online examination system to undertake their examination to choose candidates who are then provided with job opportunities and placed across various Central banks in the country. Most of the students already make use of online courses from course selling website to prepare for these banking examinations. The banking sector currently takes help from multinational companies who already have a large number of computers available with them and stations a major part of the population appearing for these examinations across several days. Currently the system is taxing because there is a dearth of multinational companies present who have all the required resources. However, with the government making this decision it can take help from the private sector to set up Institutions where online competitive examinations can be easily taken.
