National Level Exams
National level exams in India are treated as a make or break event. A sense of security and fairness should be felt by all students when taking the exams. The current system, has a high level of oppurtunity for leak and unfair advantage.
We are complicating the process by using air force, and centralized printing process and translations, which opens up aveneus for leakages. CBSE conducts exams in international locations like UAE too, increasing the logistics overhead. We can have online exams, provided students can take the exams in batches. But cheating would be possible here too.
Proposal: Just in Time Question paper generation and printing.
Print the question paper near exam center or at exam center, after the students have assembled in the exam center.
Just in Time Question Paper Printing for Exams
Tldr
- Teachers on rotation basis submit questions to a question bank
- Questions automatically prepared from Question bank, on day or exam or previous day
- Just in time Question paper printing, at exam center, after students have assembled in exam halls.
- Students arrive before question paper is printed at exam center
This can be acheived in the next exam cycle. We can even bring in an intermediatory mock exam on a small set of students, to test the proposed distributed system too.
- Have 4 zones - north, south, west, east
- Paper setters - Identify teachers in 10th and 12th grade on rotation basis each year, from each zone
- For one week Paper setters will not have access to internet, and will have to remain in their homes or some resort
- Each Paper setter submits a set of 300 question to a central repository of question bank
- Use AI for translation into regional languages
- Paper setters read the translation and upload changes if needed
- This process happens in 3 days time, before one week of the exams
- We use block chain to store all questions in question bank (this is not needed) or a basic SHA on the question bank
- One day before exam, an automated process identifies 20 questions in each category (one mark, two mark, five marks), this would be the final question paper
- AI can be used to change values in questions
- Questions from a final set, are order randomized and 10,000 combinations are created
- Each set of the question paper has a proper identifier, and encrypted using a different key
- Each examination center to have power backup and atleast 3 sets of printers for redundancy
- Sanitize and lockdown exam center
- Check battery backup, printer ink status, printer output
- Check signal jammers if required
- Students arrive 1 hour before examination time for screening and settle in their seats
- Gates to examination center is closed
- Just in Time Exam Question paper generation and printing
- Question paper is uploaded to an url on CBSE portal, accessible only via authorization
- Each exam center get its randomized set, so even if leak happens, only that exam center has to take reevaluation
- Exam center head, uses his authorization token or biometric to download and print the question paper
- All access to the question paper link, portal is logged with ip address and authorizer identification
- An app can be used to restrict access further, with biometric
- Question paper is printed at examination center, all examination center gets the same set of questions, but in different order
- Answer sheet is distributed to students 10 minutes before exam time, and they can mark their names and rolls on the answer sheet
- Question paper is distributed to students 5 minutes, before actual exam time.
Note
- Entrance exams do not work in a country as large and diverse as India.
- Not all students are on level footing.
- Financial background influence the time that students can allocate to prepare for competitive exams.
- This blog is for Certification type examiniation. i.e students are already in a school, college now we check if the students have really gained knowledge, and can they get the certificate for course completion.
- Students should be given the option of taking the 12th grade exam or any competitive exam - NEET, JEE. If students clear JEE, NEET minimum percentage, they should be treated as 12th grade pass.