Bengaluru: The Karnataka State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) may form a special committee to look at the possibility of evolving a uniform assessment system across courses and colleges to address various grievances raised by students.
The issue gathered traction after the University Grants Commission (UGC) decided to grant autonomy to universities to make up their own evaluation structure, including how internal and external marks are allocated to students. While most private institutions give 50% weightage to internals and externals, their government counterparts are at a disadvantage as most state universities continue to give 80% weightage for external assessment.
Nirmal, a fresh graduate from Bangalore University, said that this gives an unfair advantage to students from private universities during job interviews. "Students from private institutes have better scores on their marks cards as they secure more internal marks," he said.
Former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University and Secretary of the Forum of Former Vice-Chancellors of Karnataka State Universities (FVCK) Dr R.N. Sreenivas Gowda said that the KSHEC move will end undue advantage to private universities, which dilute the process to show good results from their students. "The external component of evaluation is important and it has to be done by someone from outside the university. Ideally, external evaluation should be given more weightage than internal assessment and only then will students take exams seriously," he said.
A uniform assessment system will provide a level playing field for all graduates, irrespective of their institutions, he said.
A KSHEC official told Deccan Chronicle that the committee will first seek details of all internal and external assessment patterns across all institutions for all undergraduate and postgraduate courses. "The expert panel will be formed soon after the minister's approval," the official said.
