Though Anna University has decided upon physical semester examinations for undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students which will be conducted in December, many private engineering colleges are not very happy with the decision. Hence, the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu requested the university to reconsider the decision.
A letter regarding the same was submitted by the consortium to the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University on November 15, which implored him to drop the idea of physical examinations as students are not prepared for offline examinations, informed the consortium's Joint Secretary TD Eswaramoorthy.
Even private colleges joined the chorus and pointed out that since for the last three semesters, students have been attempting examinations via the online mode, there are students who need a while to understand how to attempt long-form answers within a stipulated amount of time. When this conundrum was discussed at the meeting, several colleges chose the option of online examinations.
“After the December semester, we would conduct sufficient mock physical examinations to ensure students are able to write their papers properly. This semester, we have no time,” said the principal of a private engineering college in Namakkal, S Jagannathan.
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Then there is the threat of COVID-19's third wave and relentless rains which will only make matters difficult with regards to conducting examinations in the physical mode, informed A Baladhandapani, Secretary, Sengunthar Engineering College. He also shared that most institutions are simply not equipped to conduct the examinations while following social distancing norms.
But the VC is not ready to change his mind citing the reason that avoiding physical examinations for a long time will only affect the performance of students. "Colleges have reopened and it is the right time to get back to physical tests,” he said.