Indore: While a committee of vice-chancellors constituted by Raj Bhawan has recommended for conduct of exams in traditional way between June 20 and July 31, subject experts have cautioned the state government against it during these times of Covid-19.
“Why risk lives of students by calling them to exam centres during these times of coronavirus when there are other options available,” said Prof Mangal Mishra, principal of Cloth Market Girls Commerce College.
He stated that open-book exams and online exams are two modes of exams, wherein students won’t be required to go to colleges to take papers.
These mode of exams should be thought about as an alternative to conventional way of exams, he added.
Mishra said that though making these two modes of exams feasible is not easy but then who are looking for easy ways to deal with these difficult times.
“You got to go for difficult options during these trying times to save lives of our children,” he stated.
Senior academician Ramesh Mangal also echoed the same views.
Mangal suggested such an open-book mode of exams wherein students can be allowed to write question papers while being at home on whatever sheet is available with them.
“Question papers should be uploaded on their respective college websites and university website or sent the same to their emails, Whatsapp etc. Once they are done with the paper, they should be called in fixed numbers and in different time slots to their colleges for submission of answer sheets,” Mangal said.
He stated that calling students for submission of answer sheets to colleges in different time slots and days will help in executing social distancing norm 10000 times a greater than calling all of them to centres for writing exams.
Mishra agreed and stated that the universities can ask tricky questions if they wish to make open-book exams a bit difficult for students for increasing their knowledge of subject.
Vishishit School of Management director Anas Iqbal also thinks that it would be better to go for alternate of traditional ways of exams.
“Online exams with objective type questions paper can also be an option. Though many may oppose it saying that all students don’t have computers or smart phones to take such exams, the fact remains the same that more than 90 per cent students use smart phones and internet these days and can take exams easily. For the rest, special exams can be conducted at colleges in November or December when coronavirus scare ends,” said Iqbal.
The VCs’ committee has also given the option of special exams for those who missed out exams recommended by them between June 20 and July 31.
Other available choices
Experts stated that there are other choices also to avoid exams. The exams in questions here are of undergraduate final year and postgraduate final semester students. More than 50 per cent of papers of these students had already taken place when the exams were suspended in mid of March. For the remaining papers, exams are to be held. “We can avoid exams by giving average marks to the rest of papers,” Mishra said.
He also stated that the other option could be that performance of students in internal exams and average marks of students in the first four papers should be clubbed.
“The total of this should be considered as marks of students for the papers which could not be held,” he added.
2nd year students be marked on aggregates
The experts also opposed exams for second year students. “The students should be marked on aggregate of their first year marks,” they said. As far as first year exams are concerned, the exams should not be taken before November or December. The students should be promoted to second year even if they failed in exams. They should be given two attempts to clear the main exams and it should not be considered as supplementary exams, the experts added.
