Comprehensive Review on Exit Examination Strategies and Its Role for Enhancement of Quality Assurance and Employability Opportunity in Engineering and Technology Programs

Abstract

Examination is an organized process of gathering, examining, and interpreting the information to determine the extent to which trainees are achieving and understanding instructional objectives. Exit exam is an exam that is given at the end of the course completion may be before or after graduation. In this paper, the role, strategies, challenges, benefits and types of exit examinations (EEs) for undergraduate students(engineering and technology programs) will be thoroughly discussed from the related works to see the feasibility in the Ethiopian context. As far as my knowledge is concerned, there is no such work in the history of the Ethiopian context till date. The findings of those works revealed that the exit exam is very crucial in achieving institutional level, program level and course level objectives of the institutions around the globe. The global experiences from German, India, Arab Emirates and the USA showed that there are different strategies to implement EEs for different programs in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). In Ethiopia EE as a licensure exam for medical students and law, undergraduate students are  provided. But EEs in Engineering and technology institutions are not common throughout the globe. Formally Universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) apply EEs to all undergraduate Engineering students. There are two types of exit exam strategies namely internal and external to the institutions and given to the student either online or through paper and pencil methods. EEs are administered by various organizations. But for developing countries like Ethiopia internal EEs are recommended initially.

KEYWORDS:

• Exit examination
• Ethiopia
• Internal exit exam
• Licensure exam

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Almaw Ayele Aniley

Almaw Ayele Aniley received a PhD degree in electronics from Mangalore University, Mangalore, India in 2021 and a Master of Technology degree in microelectronic engineering from Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2011. Currently, he is working as an assistant professor at Debre Markos University, Institute of Technology (IoT), School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Debre Markos, Ethiopia. He has published 11 papers in reputed international journals, three book chapters and published two meeting abstracts and presented more than 15 research papers at the national and international level conferences. His research interest is nanosensors fabrication and characterization for different applications. He is also interested in artificial intelligence.