CHENNAI: A section of Anna University professors are worried as they have realised that students of a few classes are exploiting the loopholes in the newly-introduced relative grading system and avoiding the difficult portions of the syllabus en masse. With a tactical understanding among students, the relative grading system allows the entire class to clear papers with little difficulty if most pupils in a class study only a bare minimum of the syllabus.
The trouble the professors point out is that the relative grading system lacks any minimum pass mark.
The system was introduced in December 2015 in the university departments, but not in the affiliated colleges. “There is no minimum mark. Only if a student scores below 1.5 of the standard deviation from the mean (a similar, but slightly different concept of average) of the class, he would be given an ‘R’ grade and would have to reappear for the paper,” says S Srinivasalu, additional controller of examination in the university. A section of the professors in the State’s premier technical institution point out that this has led to cases when students cleared papers even when they secured only single-digit scores.
“Last semester, a second-year student of the Civil Engineering department scored just 2 per cent and was declared to have passed under the system since the class average mark was only 22. The professor in charge of the subject refused to sign the mark sheet,” a university professor told Express on condition of anonymity, adding that the trend he fears is fast spreading among different departments. The answer papers of the students make it evident that the entire class skips a good amount of the syllabus and focuses only on certain sections.
“Only a few studious ones will study the entire syllabus. The rest of the students discuss and decide among themselves what portions to study and what to skip,” says a final-year student of the university, who claims to have witnessed his juniors discussing which sections to study and which ones to omit.
Are students to blame for getting single digit marks? Amidst criticism from professors who blame the new relative grading system declaring students with very low marks as passed, Anna University officials said that only the teaching faculty has to be blamed for not making students interested in subjects they teach. “If a student gets just two marks in a subject, the faculty has to be blamed. Faculty members must interact with students and hold discussions to make the subject interesting,” a university official said.
“We have discussed this issue with the departments concerned. From next semester, we are also thinking about having a minimum pass mark. But this would defy the original concept of relative grading,” said S Srinivasalu, Additional Controller of Examination of the university.
He stressed that students, teachers and administration must take part in the process to make the new system successful. “Through internal assessment we can evaluate capability of students on basis of daily performance,” he said.
Highlighting the advantage of the relative grading system, he said it removes personal bias of the faculty. While a few faculty would be liberal in awarding marks, others could be strict. The relative grading system removes this bias.
“A professor would not come to know whether a student would pass or fail. He cannot show favouritism in this system. The grades are assigned by considering the mean and the standard deviation of the subject in a class,” said L Elango, Head of the Department of Geology. He pointed out that it’s the computer’s algorithm that decides whether a student cleared a paper or not.
But S Chandramohan, a faculty in the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, said the staff are blindly signing the grade sheet without knowing how the grades are allotted to students. In the end even the top performer would have actually studied only 50 per cent of the syllabus. Many other professors expressed concern stating that it was still not clear to them as to how the system’s algorithm assigns the grades.
Among the strong supporters of relative grading system are students themselves who want it to continue without a minimum pass mark criteria. “Even if a student scores very low marks, this system will help him clear the paper as the marks will be considered on the basis of class average,” a second-year student said, brushing aside the quality of education debate surrounding the issue.
What is Relative Grading?
Unlike the absolute grading system, which has a minimum pass mark, the relative grading system is based on the class average. The formula of relative grading followed by Anna University is that only students who score mark lesser than 1.5 times of the standard deviation from the mean, are considered as having failed in the subject. Standard deviation is a statistical concept which loosely means the average deviation of the marks of students from its mean (again a statistical concept, but different from average). The grades awarded are O (Outstanding), A+, A, B+ and R (Repeat). After the marks are fed into the computer, the algorithm automatically converts the marks and assigns the respective grades. In the case of grading, the university uses a software called SEMS (Secured Examination Management System).