ABSTRACT
Assessment of students' learning need not only be understood in a pedagogic context as an objective and benign evaluation of students' competence, but needs to be placed in a larger societal context in which it often plays an important role in maintaining societies and even establishing order in them. This chapter is organised into three sections. The first traces the institutionalisation of examinations in the colonial period, consolidation in independent India, and its implications. The second section discusses examination-related concerns and recommendations of various committees set up to examine the prevailing education system both before and after Independence. The third section traces the debate around specific assessment-related reforms initiated by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE) and aims to understand its ramifications for the disadvantaged child in Indian society.
