1Senior Research Fellow, Department of Education, University of Calicut
2Assistant Professor, Department of Education, University of Calicut
Online published on 27 July, 2017.
IT@school is a project of Department of General Education, Government of Kerala set up in 2001, to foster Information Technology (IT) education in schools and which on longer term would facilitate ICT enabled education in State. The success of the project can be visualized by the conduct of IT practical examination using specially designed software for about 4 million students. This attempt is first of its’ kind in world with so much vast deployment of Open Source Software. Kerala Government made IT as a compulsory subject in school curriculum and provided schools across the state with computers and broadband internet connection. Kerala is the first state to conduct compulsory IT theory and practical examination as a part of secondary education. Though separate examinations for theory and practical were conducted initially, both of these are combined and the assessment is fully turned out as computer-based by 2012–13 academic year. In this background the investigators studied the problems and prospects of computer based assessment at secondary level in the state of Kerala.
This paper tries to explore the policy shift from paper-pencil to computerized testing, the advantages of the specific mode of assessment, problems faced for the successful conduct of computerized assessment, and suggestions for the improvement of the assessment procedure. Interview with teachers, pupils, and administrators was the major tool for the investigation. Quality in performance of individual pupils can be ensured by adopting computer based assessment. Infrastructural facilities are reported as a major constraint for timely conduct of computer based assessment.
Computer based assessment, IT school project, ICT enabled education, policy shift, infrastructural facilities
