A few days ago, the Central University of Tamil Nadu had decided to conduct online examinations for its final year students, owing to the pandemic and the lockdown, creating an outcry among the students. Now, a survey conducted by the university's Students' Council says that almost 83 per cent of the final year students do not have a stable internet connection to appear for the examinations. Apart from that, 56 per cent of the final year students do not have access to gadgets that are necessary to write exams online.
The survey was conducted by the students on June 18 through Google Forms. A total of 332 students had answered it. While 83 per cent of the students said that they do not prefer online examinations, 84 per cent aren't mentally prepared to write examinations online. 215 of the respondents do not have a stable electricity connection.
Now, most of the students. a whopping 88 per cent to be exact, say that they must be promoted without an examination, a practice that the University of Hyderabad had recently adopted. Now there seems like a reason why the students suggest this. The survey report says that for a majority of the students (70 per cent), their syllabus hasn't been completed.
"We have sent the survey report to the administration," says a member of the Students' Council. He says that no representative of the council was present at the meeting that had decided to conduct an online examination for the students. There has been criticism previously about the decision. A lot of students had called it 'autocratic'. "Even students with access to gadgets and network connectivity do not support the conduct of online examinations. Exams must be conducted for everyone equally," he says. The university had previously said that the students with no access to data and gadgets can write the examinations online after normalcy returns.
We had previously sent an email to the university administration seeking their comment on this issue. This copy will be updated once they respond.
