Should College Assessment Be Done Based On Skills And How It Can Benefit Students

In the Indian educational ecosystem, more focus is laid on classroom education or rote learning, while skilling is treated as a secondary aspect of education curriculum. Although serious discussion has taken place for imparting skills-based education rather than just knowledge-based education, whether assessment at college level should be based on skills has emerged as a topic of debate lately. Assessment is a critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. It enables the instructors or teachers to measure the effectiveness of their teaching by linking student performance to specific learning objectives. In this way, teachers can organise effective teaching choices and revise ineffective ones in their pedagogy. 

Skill-based education and knowledge-based education

It is important to understand the difference between skill-based education and knowledge-based education. While academic-oriented education helps in understanding the concepts behind the technology or science, skill-based education helps in creating schools and products. 

Should college assessment be done based on skills and how it can be done

The college assessment has so far been based on marks achieved in written exams. Today, traditional ways of conducting classroom exams alone are not enough to evaluate a student’s performance. A student’s real potential may also lie in a skill set he/she possesses. Gradual shift towards skill-based assessments can help in identifying a student’s innate abilities. 

College assessments can be modified by revising the curriculum or syllabi to incorporate skills that can help students and fresh graduates to decide what is best for them. This can be done by including skill-based education in college like effective oral and written communication, presentation skills, digital marketing, designing, critical thinking and problem-solving, learning new languages, etc. All this can be done while keeping the main curriculum intact and providing the students options to study or acquire life-based skills. 

How it will benefit students

Skill-based assessment at college or graduation level will make students job-ready or future-ready. Even in the case of dropouts, essential life skills like creative thinking and effective communication skills can give them a direction to be productive. Besides, self-assessment or assessment done by a teacher can help the student to do self-evaluation. Data collected through skill-based assessment helps in providing detailed feedback to teachers as well as the parents regarding student's overall strengths and weaknesses. 

Experiential learning is part of skill-based education which follows the principle of ‘learning by doing’. This helps students to deal with real-life situations and helps them assess themselves based on their performance. 

COVID-19 and need for skill-based education 

COVID-19 pandemic has made it crucial for the government, industry, and academia to come together now to focus on skilling students for a better future.  The need for skilling students was always there but students should keep in mind that post-COVID, the skill-based jobs will see a boom as demand for skilled workers related to sanitation, health, and technology will increase. Students can be part of this ‘reset’ process and utilise their skills to secure opportunities in their fields of interest. Before that, there is a need for the education ecosystem to warm up to the forthcoming skill-based opportunities and groom students accordingly. 

There is a great need for skilling students, especially after school education, increasing industry exposure in their respective fields. Apart from the regular academics, students must be provided alternative skill-based courses or given hands-on training. This means giving them real-life experience in machine workshops and shop floors. Skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling of students is therefore the need of the hour to fill the gap between industry and academia and this can be done best at college level. 

The University Grants Commission (UGC), in its book ‘Quality Mandate’ released earlier this year, has suggested that higher education institutes in India should re-model their assessment system to make them aptitude based.

With a population of 1.3 billion, India may be the second most populous country, but it has one of the youngest populations in the world. Today, India is one of the youngest countries in the world with more than 62% of the population in the working age group (15-59 years) and more than 54% of the total population below 25 years of age. So, there is an urgent need to enhance the skills of the available workforce to improve their employability and contribution to the economic growth of the country. This can be done by skill-based assessment at college level and policy makers can take effective steps in this direction in cooperation with all stakeholders. 

When it comes to skills-based assessment, then the New Education Policy (2020) at national level and outcome-based education (OBE) at global level can be considered as roadmaps to improving higher education and imparting life skills to students by changing assessment patterns. 

                   -Dr. Sanjay Goel, Director, Institute of Engineering and Technology, JK Lakshimpat University, Jaipur