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Unit 21: Problems of Secondary Education...

getting information, store and make its use as and when desired. Such type of activities is aid to Notes
be the part and parcel of Information Technology (IT). However, the use as well as access to the
information remains incomplete without the involvement of the art of communication.
Communication as a two-way process tends for the sharing of ideas, thought, beliefs and
information with others. The mutual sharing between the source and receiver of the information
thus tends to add in its increase, understanding and use that ultimately help in building up
knowledge. In this way, both information and communication are utmost needed in acquiring
knowledge and getting involved in the knowledge-acquiring process. Now, the efficiency and
effectiveness in the activities selected to information and communication is availed from information
and communication technology or ICT.

Uses and Advantages
ICTs can play the same role in our information and communication processes and their outcomes
as played by other technologies in making our lives quite comfortable and purposeful. As a result,
they have become quite popular in all walks of our life. The modern ICTs, in fact, have brought a
revolution in he field of business, industry, insurance, banking, agriculture, medicine, transport,
postal and telecommunications, service organizations and various other fiends affecting our day-
to-day activities.
The Students
They may get the required opportunities and training for receiving and using information for
their self-improvement. ICT may help them to satisfy their urges of curiosity, intenseness,
construction, etc. They get acquainted with he relevant sources of information, the ways and
means of extracting required information, methods of information processing, etc. The training
received in proper decision-making and problem solving may enable them to bring necessary
changes in their behavior.
The Teacher
The teachers get sufficient help from ICT in their task of teaching. Their acquaintance with the
relevant source of information in the form of books, journals and other reading=material, audio-
visual arterial and equipment and electronics and telecommunication media makes them able to
acquire necessary teaching material and techniques.

21.5 Student Examination and Evaluation

Secondary education is the turning point for a large majority of students. Not only the certificate
one earns after schooling but also the actual learning during schooling is the lifelong resource.
Along with building dynamism in curricular framework as well as instructional processes,
evaluation must undergo major changes. Conventionally, education system, particularly school
education is guided and controlled by concern for results in examination irrespective of the quality
of learning --whether fragile or sustainable. The competition, though artificial, for securing
percentage of marks in the final examination creates unusual stress in the students leading often
to mental break down and suicides. This must change.
Change in the mechanics of examination will be too simplistic a solution, amounting to treating
the symptoms, not the disease itself. Examination-stress is directly related to facing the challenge
of examination with ‘fragile’ learning due to memorizing huge stock of information. In order to
manage the stress factor in examination it will be necessary to ensure sustainable learning which
the function of instructional processes is. Yet, it will be necessary to reconstruct and redesign
examination system with attributes like flexibility where a student can achieve mastery learning
in a flexible time frame and accumulate credits; eliminating power tests (fixed duration), adopt
continuous and comprehensive evaluation. The practice of mark sheets indicating marks in certain
subjects must be replaced by a portfolio that would accommodate a student’s performance in a
variety of domains like life skills, academic/nonacademic and vocational subjects, personal qualities,
etc. The portfolio should be comprehensive, revealing of the total being of the student.

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