Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) gave a major shocker to its students who were about to write their 6th-semester engineering exams on Monday. The varsity set a wrong question paper and later on realising it, sent the students home.

The students who arrived at the examination hall to write their Mechatronics Satellite Communications paper — an elective paper newly introduced in the Choice Based Credit  System scheme — waited for an hour inside the exam hall, before being told to go home. They were told the exam had been postponed, and no other explanation was given.

An official of VTU, on condition of anonymity, said that the varsity authorities had set a wrong question paper “due  to confusion over the subject/course code communicated to the paper-setters, and realised it only a few hours before the exams.”

The official explained that the faculty, who was assigned the job of setting the question paper, had received the wrong code. “It was a communication mismatch between authorities and paper-setters. Following the wrong code that was communicated, the faculty members set a wrong paper based on some other syllabus and we got to know it only a few hours before the exams and postponed it to July 9,” the official said.

However, this subject is being offered in very few colleges, and according to VTU, only one college in Bengaluru offers this subject.

Jagannath Reddy, a registrar of VTU, said, “The students of only one college opted for this elective subject and it was a small mismatch as the code communication went wrong.”

This unfortunate incident got trolled on various social medium, saying, “VTU 6th sem Mechatronics satellite communication exam postponed because VTU forgot to set the question paper. Students were made to sit in the hall for one hour and sent home.”