Why don't we trust our children?

Education has been the biggest casualty of the pandemic. The response of the authorities thus far has been to curtail the learning. And no student body has protested. More than online learning, it is the online testing that has gripped the imagination of academics. Fair and credible testing is important for preserving the quality of higher education. Our college had organised a nation-wide competition inviting students to submit solutions for effective online teaching and learning methodologies. I was curious to listen to how students perceived this problem. None of the 15 final teams addressed the questions posed and instead focused their energy on designing and delivery of learning apps and redesigning the physical space. Prof Kannan Moudgulya, of IIT-B, one of the judges, rightly called this out. He said IITs are grappling with the problem of secure and credible online testing. Proctoring is big business now; it has grown 900% in last few months. Yet, the software used for remote proctoring violates privacy, as this article points out. Why have we designed a system in which cheating is given and we don’t trust our children? Our system incentivises cheating. 

How will COVID-19 transform universities?


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