I made the following comment (slightly edited) to a recent post, How well does a college teach its students?, http://www.obvioustruths.blogspot.com/2014/06/how-well-does-college-teach-its-students.html, by Srinivasan Ramani, http://internethalloffame.org/inductees/srinivasan-ramani :
Interesting views. More transparency in Indian academic system in general will do wonders in giving students and parents some reasonable picture of the teaching and research quality of Indian academic institutions. As of now, most Indian academic institution websites do not carry significant information on course material related to courses taught by its faculty, though many carry the academic's research publication list. I think if the course material for courses taught by academics is put up on their website, students, parents and even employers will be able to get some idea of what is really taught in those courses. In great contrast to Indian academia, many US academic websites have detailed course material - Indian academia should follow their lead in this regard, IMHO.
Regarding standard exams that assess how well a college teaches its students, for engineering in India, we have the GATE exam, which is quite widely accepted by academia (for further education like M.Tech.) as well as government employers as the key measurement criteria for knowledge level of engineering graduates. Perhaps it would be a great idea to have its results available in the public domain but there may be moral and legal issues related to protection of privacy rights of students who got poor scores. The wiki page states, "The score cards are issued to only the qualified candidates."
As somebody who is interested in improving the practice of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, one issue I have with examinations like GATE, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Aptitude_Test_in_Engineering, is that they, I believe, focus on the theory part of the knowledge of the candidate, as that may be easier to assess. Even the National Eligibility Test for Lecturers (Asst. Professors) for UGC/AICTE regulated colleges, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Eligibility_Test. for the CS & IT field does not seem to have a practical component for the test! What is badly needed by youth in colleges nowadays is employability, and employability needs the right blend of theory and practical knowledge. Once our national examinations including GATE and UGC NET improve their assessment techniques to properly assess practical knowledge then they may become an important measure of the employability of engineering college graduates.
Interesting views. More transparency in Indian academic system in general will do wonders in giving students and parents some reasonable picture of the teaching and research quality of Indian academic institutions. As of now, most Indian academic institution websites do not carry significant information on course material related to courses taught by its faculty, though many carry the academic's research publication list. I think if the course material for courses taught by academics is put up on their website, students, parents and even employers will be able to get some idea of what is really taught in those courses. In great contrast to Indian academia, many US academic websites have detailed course material - Indian academia should follow their lead in this regard, IMHO.
Regarding standard exams that assess how well a college teaches its students, for engineering in India, we have the GATE exam, which is quite widely accepted by academia (for further education like M.Tech.) as well as government employers as the key measurement criteria for knowledge level of engineering graduates. Perhaps it would be a great idea to have its results available in the public domain but there may be moral and legal issues related to protection of privacy rights of students who got poor scores. The wiki page states, "The score cards are issued to only the qualified candidates."
As somebody who is interested in improving the practice of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, one issue I have with examinations like GATE, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Aptitude_Test_in_Engineering, is that they, I believe, focus on the theory part of the knowledge of the candidate, as that may be easier to assess. Even the National Eligibility Test for Lecturers (Asst. Professors) for UGC/AICTE regulated colleges, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Eligibility_Test. for the CS & IT field does not seem to have a practical component for the test! What is badly needed by youth in colleges nowadays is employability, and employability needs the right blend of theory and practical knowledge. Once our national examinations including GATE and UGC NET improve their assessment techniques to properly assess practical knowledge then they may become an important measure of the employability of engineering college graduates.
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