Thane school to conduct exams online

From next June, students at Sulochanadevi Singhania School in Thane will take their monthly tests online.

From next June, students at Sulochanadevi Singhania School in Thane will take their monthly tests online.

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Moving away from the standard pen-and-paper format, students will answer multiple-choice questions in mathematics and science tests on computers connected to school’s centralised system.

“We need to have innovations in assessment and evaluation patterns, which is why we decided to bring in an online test,” said Revathi Srinivasan, principal of the school.

The school’s Class 12 students appeared for a series of pilot online tests in mathematics and the science subjects in August. “In our first round of online testing, the Class 12 students really enjoyed the process, so based on the feedback we have decided to expand it,” said Srinivasan.

The tests are in the international GRE format, where students have to answer each question within a specific time and they get their test scores as soon as they finish the test. The programme also tells them which answers they got wrong.

“Students weren’t simply guessing which option to choose but were actually working out the questions to arrive at the answer,” said Srinivasan. “It’s also a creative challenge for teachers to set papers online.”

In January, the school will experiment with the online test for Class 7 for an English language paper, before expanding the system to the whole school in June. Next year, the online tests will also be tweaked to include negative marking in assessing the final score.

The school has also been conducting quizzes for fun for students online.

“I enjoyed doing the online quiz because it was different and a change from the usual pen and paper tests,” said Mahek Porwal, a Class 8 student who has done some of the online science quizzes.