University reverts to dummy number system

CHENNAI: The University of Madras has decided to turn its back on technology and return to a manual process so far as its examination evaluations are concerned.

Two years ago, students were given personalised and digitally encoded answer sheets for University examinations in an effort to prevent malpractice. The optical mark recognition system was intended to replace the manually-assigned dummy numbers method.

On Friday, however, vice-chancellor G. Thiruvasagam announced that following complaints from students and principals, the University would return to the dummy number system. “It is not fair to give confidential matters to outsiders, who take the papers outside,” he said, after a meeting with principals and management representatives of affiliated colleges. “It also involves a long process, and when there are technical mistakes, students are the ones who suffer.”

A “sizable number” of papers had had such problems over the past year, he said, including cases where failed students had been marked as “pass” and vice versa, and cases where candidates had wrongly been marked absent because of a technical hitch. “With strict monitoring, there will be no chance for malpractice in the dummy number system.”

Dr. Thiruvasagam also hopes that the return to the manual process will cut short the amount of time needed and help to declare results early. He had earlier announced that it would be mandatory for all affiliated colleges to send their faculty for evaluation duty. “The argument from the self-financing colleges is that teachers should not be asked to cancel their classes and come to the university [for evaluation]…So I have announced that we will declare a week’s leave for students, so that all teachers are free for evaluation. We will complete all evaluation within a week,” he said.

BA Tamil in decline

Three colleges have asked permission to discontinue their BA Tamil courses as there is not enough demand from students. “Several colleges say they are getting only single-digit students,” he said. The vice-chancellor feels that colleges would do better if they included more job-oriented elements to the BA Tamil syllabus and replaced some of the ancient Tamil literature with some “lighter” pieces.

“I have asked the three colleges to wait while we reform the curriculum,” he said. A committee has been set up to make the University’s BA Tamil course more application-oriented, including computer knowledge, media training and spoken Tamil modules, he said.

-From The Hindu news