Student Evaluation and Reforms in Higher Education Institutions
Innovative evaluation process in higher education system is required to gauge the knowledge and skills acquired at various levels of the programmes. As part of imparting quality higher education for undergraduate and post graduate students, Srinivas Institute of Management Studies (SIMS) developed an education service model for integrated academic support. Backed by the presumption that evaluation is the essence of examination and examination is vital to assessment, the college has instituted a wide range of evaluation processes which runs parallel to curriculum delivery. In this paper, we have analysed the strategies followed by Srinivas Institute of Management Studies, which is affiliated to Mangalore University for ensuring transparency in evaluation and undertaking reforms to strengthen it. The paper discusses details on the major evaluation reforms of the university that the institution has adopted, and the reforms initiated by the institution on its own, details on some of the formative and summative evaluation approaches adopted to measure student achievement which have positively impacted the system, details on the significant improvements made in ensuring rigor and transparency in the internal assessment and weightages assigned, for the overall development of students. The graduate attributes specified by the college/affiliating university and the institutional effort to ensure the attainment of these by the students, and details of the mechanisms for redressal of grievances with reference to evaluation both at the college and University level are also analysed.