LAHORE, Oct 4: The Higher Education Commission’s National Committee on Examination System (NCES) has recommended that choice of questions and the practice of awarding grace marks to failing students be abolished in higher examinations.

The committee made these recommendations at its meeting held at the University of Health Sciences with vice-chancellor Prof Malik Husain Mubbashar in the chair.

Sargodha University VC Dr Riazul Haq Tariq; Pakistan Science Foundation chairman Dr N M Butt; University of Sindh Dean Dr Muhammad Yar Khawar; Armed Forces of Pakistan advisor on psychiatry Brig Mowadat H Rana; Punjab University Examination Controller Dr Ehsan Malik; University of Engineering and Technology’s Dr Noor M Sheikh; Quaid-i-Azam University’s Dr S Khursheed Hasnain; and UHS Examination Controller Dr Asif Hashmi attended the meeting.

The committee unanimously proposed that extra chances over and above permissible number of attempts to clear a subject should not be allowed under any circumstances as these were among the factors detrimental to sanctity of examination system nationally and internationally. The committee stressed that the HEC should immediately forward these recommendations to the varsities for implementation after necessary deliberation by their own statutory bodies.

The committee recommended the HEC to arrange a workshop of focal persons nominated by the VCs of the public sector varsities to reach a consensus on terminologies of processes, procedures and practices of examinations.

The committee also agreed that quality universities in private sector including Lahore University of Management Sciences, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Aga Khan Medical University and Foundation for Advancement in Science and Technology should be involved in the process of improving the existing examination system. It was also agreed that even after the implementation of these recommendations, the committee should continue to function as an advisory body of the HEC.

The committee emphasized that in examinations, descriptive questions should only be retained where students’ writing skills or ability to argue was needed to be evaluated. Moreover, multiple choice questions (MCQs) and short essay questions (SEQs) should be used frequently because of content validity. The committee pointed out that most of the questions should assess conceptual knowledge and application of learned material in practical field. In this context, some members observed with concern that the medical colleges’ entrance test had no predictive validity in terms of intermediate marks.

PU CE Dr Malik, in his presentation on the semester system highlighted its strengths and weaknesses. For the success of semester system in local universities, he said, there was a need to appoint strong directors/principals, dedicated teachers, better system of teacher evaluation, preparation of curricula suitable for the system and gradual improvement of the system.

The chairman of the sub-committee on grading system, Dr Riazul Haq Tariq, gave a presentation on course credit hours and grading system. He said time-based measures like the credit hours were not only rooted naturally in traditional academic practice, but were also easy to audit. Any alternative metric would have to be similarly ensured through reasonable inspection or audit procedures based on direct observation or existing academic record. The committee had already recommended that course credit hours and criteria of success should be uniform in institutions all over Pakistan, which should be in line with the international standards.

The sub-committee on post-examination analysis comprising Dr N M Butt, Dr Asif Hashmi and Dr S Khursheed Hasnain, presented its report. It recommended that the examination departments of the universities should have a regular review of the overall performance of their students in addition to focusing on individual examinations on a more quantitative and statistical basis to determine how the examination and performance standards were behaving over a period of time.