Semester System of Evaluation in the Colleges of Sikkim

Abstract

University and colleges have adopted semester system in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Sikkim since 2008. Semester system facilitates intense academic period and also prompt evaluation. The system is also very useful to track and maintain an individual performance record of all the students through an intensive interactive process between students and teachers. In semester system, the final results are declared within 20 days of the last day of examinations. Moreover, evaluation pattern includes mid-semester test (weightage 20 per cent); term papers/tutorials, field visit, presentation (weightage 25 per cent) and end semester examination (weightage 50 per cent). Similarly, in the course of 12 months a student is evaluated six times. The university is following a grading system in ten point scale in the evaluation process. Five percentage points are given to class attendance above the minimum 75 per cent mandatory attendance. Thirty per cent of the end-semester scripts are evaluated by the course teacher. If there is a difference of 10–20 per cent in marking by the course teacher and the external evaluator, the marks given by the internal course teacher will be regarded as final. If, however, the difference is more than 20 per cent, the script would be sent to a third external examiner and the marks awarded by him/her would be taken as final. If the difference is found in all the papers/scripts picked up on random basis, all the scripts evaluated by the concerned internal teacher would be sent for re-evaluation. However, the semester system is not free from lacunae. The article focuses on the status of evaluation pattern and its problems in colleges of Sikkim.