HYDERABAD: All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to allow students to assess their teachers from the ensuing academic year. In what is being touted as an attempt to improve the quality of engineering education, the feedback-based assessment of teachers will carry 25 per cent weightage for their promotion.
Other parameters include departmental activities, institute activities, ACR and contribution to society. This assessment pattern currently followed in IITs and NITs has evoked a mixed response from both teachers and academicians from engineering colleges.
KRK Rao, general secretary of All India Federation of Self-Financing Technical Education (AIFSTI), said that getting students feedback is difficult particularly in technical education where 40-45 per cent marks in the form of internal marks are with teachers.
“There is a likelihood that students will give good feedback to teachers who give them better marks in internal examinations. Thus teachers who are not good at teaching will get a good score on students feedback. If this happens the whole idea of having this type of assessment to improve the quality of technical education will fall flat on its face,” he said.
According to official notification by the AICTE, “Candidate will be asked to submit the average score for each course taught during academic year under consideration on a scale of 25. The average of the total of all such score shall be used.”
Teachers, however, have found that this assessment method would be prove useful to them.
“While some teaching faculty will now refrain from scolding or being strict, for others its an easy way out. They know keeping students happy will fetch them good feedback,” said Ravinder Reddy, a lecturer at a private engineering college in the city.
A notification regarding the feedback scoring system to assess teachers has been sent to all the AICTE-affiliated colleges and over 10,500 institutes are expected to implement the same from the next promotion cycle. However, there is a possibility that the guidelines of the new system could be diluted by private institutions to suit their requirements.
Meanwhile, NV Ramana Rao, director NIT Warangal, is hopeful of the assessment working even in private engineering colleges. “System will bring in accountability among teachers and thereby improve quality of teaching. It has worked well in IITs and NITs and I see no reason why it won’t work in other private institutions. Students have to understand that their feedback is directly going to affect the quality of education,” he said.