Dear All,
The issues raised in the article are not unusual. Let me present a few examples:
1.
I was a student of ME (Indl Egg) in the Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 1972, I
got 80 marks out of 100 in the Quality Control paper and 51 in Industrial Egg
paper. I approached the evaluator who was from Economics stream who told me you
are the first (best student) in the University, other students got less marks
than you and paper like this scoring 51 marks out of 100, the best answered
paper!
2.
I was Heading Mechanical Engineering Department, Govt. College of Engineering,
Karad 1987-1993, One of our Lecturers gave Term Work marks in Engineering
Drawing submission 42 and above up to 49 out of 50. Whereas, one teacher did not
cross even 35 marks. I set a Committee and 3 best and 3 worst graded Term Works
were pulled together that were scrutinized by the Committee and normalization
was done.
3.
I was selected as the Principal, BMV College, Anand in 1980s (that I could not
join unfortunately because of Govt. approach). The University was developing
grade system.
I made a suggestion that the students getting the highest score say 51 is
excellent as another student who scores say 90 marks in another paper and this
normalization (Normal distribution) be done. This was accepted. This method is
forced choice method. Consider Normal distribution, hardly 10-15% students
should get A and above grades, C grade for another tail end students and
remaining 80% B grades or so.
Normalization of data is not a new process and if judiciously applied, more
fairness can be brought in.
It is true when I am paying tuition fees to the tune Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakhs,
students/parent think they are purchasing the degree, already the meritorious
poor students are wiped out. Hence, it is the prime responsibility of the
Govt/NGOs to provide quality education to all free like Gurukul system where
tuition and living was free.
What the Harvard is doing is not new.
Regards.
Yours,
____________________________________________________
On Sat, 07 Dec 2013 13:54:23 +0530 wrote
>
Is there a competition between universities to award better grades.?
Satish
Can Harvard stop awarding so many As?ByStephen Joel Trachtenbergupdated
4:39 PM EST, Fri December 6, 2013Editor's note:Stephen Joel Trachtenbergis
president emeritus and university professor of public service at George
Washington University. He is chairman of the Korn/Ferry Higher Education
Practice and senior client partner at Korn/Ferry International, an executive
recruiting firm.(CNN)-- In case anyone had a shadow of a doubt that most Harvard
students are precocious, smart, if not learned, we hear from the lips of
Harvard's Dean of Undergraduate Education, Jay M. Harris, that nearly all the
students at Harvard are indeed above average -- so much so that themedian grade
given is an A- and the most frequent grade awarded is an A!What are we to make
of the news? Well, first of all, this is not exactly news. Harvard and many
elite colleges across the country have witnessed the
creeping ivy of grade inflation for quite some time -- a situation that has
just about eliminated failure as a possibility.It makes one wonder why the
school bothers giving grades at all.In the mid-1970s, when I was a dean at
Boston University, there were rumors that a certain professor was
indiscriminately awarding a final grade of A to all his students. That was
unusual back then when most professors graded on the bell curve and only a
handful of the best students received an A. Some actually failed and most
received grades of B or C.But in
the case of this particular professor everybody got an A. As a test, I
surreptitiously enrolled a fictitious student into the roster of his next class.
This "nobody" never came to class, never wrote a term paper and never took an
exam. At the end of the semester the mysterious student received an A.That led
to a discussion with the professor. In a tone of righteous indignation he
claimed I had overstepped my bounds to play such a trick on him. With righteous
indignation I claimed that he had underperformed as a professor by acting in a
reckless manner, grading his students with careless abandonment. Steam came out
of both our ears. I believed his actions were a mark
of failure in academic responsibility.Grades serve several purposes. They are a
tool that measures a student's progress in relation to others in a class; they
allow financial aid and scholarship committees to assess merit; and they
culminate in a 4-year overall performance record in the form of a college
transcript. Academic strengths and weaknesses are discovered over a period of
time.To some extent Harvard's faculty have abandoned their responsibilities to
their students as well as to those who wish to judge their students: Admission
officers at law and medical school; faculty selecting
graduates to mentor them for advanced degree programs; employers deciding
between applicants for jobs.Decades ago, professors were often characterized by
their students on the severity of their grading. Professor Smith is a tough
grader -- no one gets an A. Or, Professor Jones is an easy grader -- no one
fails. What can be said today? All the professors are easy marks as well as easy
markers.Why give everyone an A? When the admissions office puts together a
freshman class full of high school valedictorians who have perfect grades and
SAT scores, there is no doubt they are bringing capable
students to the campus. But the power has shifted from the faculty to the
students and a new form of entitlement on the part of students has developed.If
students are paying $55,000 a year, they may feel they have paid for the As in
dollars as well as sense. Is there an unspoken academic transaction that is
filtering into the university landscape now that tuition prices are in the
stratosphere? Has higher education morphed into a consumer business in which the
customer is always right? It seems like it.First, universities have to compete
for students in the marketplace. Then faculties do
the same after students enroll. Professors want to be popular. They want good
ratings from students at the end of semester reviews just as the students want
good grades from them. Gut courses, once the exception, have become more
common.Faculty tenure, promotions and raises may turn on such matters right
along with publications and other measures. University life, long a contact
sport, has been upgraded to a blood sport. It's become a "dog-eat-dog" business
in which departments try to fill quotas for majors.And then there are the
parents who are quick to speak out if they think their sons
or daughters are under appreciated.Is there a solution that can stop grade
inflation? Yes, of course.In 2004, Princeton readjusted their grading system
instructing the faculty not give more than 35% of their undergraduate students A
or A- grades, and apparently Yale is currently discussing a similar adjustment.
Harvard faculty should construct a ladder that has a rung at the bottom, middle
and top.Last week, I had the privilege to chair the Rhodes Scholarship selection
committee for the D.C., Maryland,
North Carolina district. We interviewed 13 semi-finalists and selected 2 award
winners. All 13 were exceptional; the final decision came down to the splitting
of hairs. Out of the 32 Rhodes Scholars named across the United States, Harvard
students came away with 6, an impressive outcome however one slices the pie.
Perhaps they are all A students. But now we know many Harvard students receive
As.http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/opinion/trachtenberg-grade-
inflation/index.html?sr=fb120613gradeinflation630p
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