Learning or Test Taking

There was a lot of hue and cry over the remarks that Mr Narayan Murthy made about the slump in the quality of education in IITs. He talked about the need to overhaul the selection criteria for students seeking admission to these institutions. He said, "Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower." Let us look at the import of the three statements.The first idea is about the slump in the quality of education. How should we measure the quality of education provided by an institution of higher learning? Is it based on the kind of jobs that the industry or academia offers to the students when they complete their educations or should we view the careers of the alumni over a period of time to answer that question? Is the purpose of education limited to just employability or is it also about being a game changer? Education has two possible outcomes. One lies in the employability or the tangible value of the knowledge and skills. This is more short term driven. The other is more intangible and can be measured by the impact made by alumni in society.This measure has to be long term. On both the criteria the alumni of IITs stand tall. They boast of several well known entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and leaders of institutions not just in India but all over the world. We need to view the contribution of the current crop of students over time before we reach conclusions about their caliber.The second issue about overhauling the selection system is to me the heart of the issue. Any system of testing produces a set of coaching institutes. This is a natural process that happens all over the world. Hackers actually make our software better because they expose the vulnerabilities of the code. In a connected world, there are hundreds of sites dedicated to coach people on how to write resumes and answer technical questions in an interview.The Wikipedia itself has all the ten cards of the Rorschach inkblot test that psychologists use to judge personality and thought disorders. The site also gives what are the most common responses. There are sites on the web that tell you how to fake the inkblot test. There are coaching classes to teach three year olds how to get into the elite schools of the neighborhood. There are coaching classes for aspiring actors Yet every actor who graduates from the acting school does not become a superstar.Every aspirational opportunity gives rise to a coaching class. The test designers need to ensure that they are able to test what it takes to succeed in that profession. If we want engineers to be analytically superior, then the test must check that. If we want them to be great communicators, then the test must focus on sifting students on the basis of their written communication and presentation skills. So, the onus of designing the right test is on the institutions.The question to ask is whether the current entrance exam is testing the right behavior? The ability to test well is not indicative of the ability to learn. To design the right test we have to look at what behaviour helps a student succeed AFTER they have graduated from the institution.The entrance exam must test not just the ability of the applicant to successfully meet the academic rigor of the institution, but also to be able to perform the demands of the profession. The role of the teacher is not about dispensing information; it is about building a mindset that makes the student a lifelong learner.The students are only as good as the professors they learn from. Think about it. -----------------------Originally Published in The Economic Times dated 3rd Nov 2011. Read it hereRead my take on :Why intangibles matter in organizations - Economic Times 25th Oct 2011 <click here>