JOIN USStudents were made to sit in corridors and stairs to write mid-semester exams in Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University on Friday. Shortage of rooms and compressing of the one-week-long examination schedule into three days have been cited as the prime reasons for the chaos on the second day of the exams.
“The mismanaged and unorganised manner in which the minor-I exams for the current academic session are being conducted is causing chaos and confusion, putting all students and faculty through unnecessary inconvenience and hardships,” said an office-bearer of the Teachers’ Association of GGSIU.
He said inceasing the number of courses and strength of students without concomitant increase in faculty and infrastructure is bound to create troubles.
Students were made to sit in faculty offices to complete their exams while faculty members stood outside. Faculty members alleged that due to overcrowding of classrooms, students were sitting close to one another, resulting in cheating.
Apart from lack of space to accommodate students taking exams, other issues of mismanagement have been raised by a letter being circulated among teachers. It will be submitted to the vice chancellor of the university after being signed by willing faculty members.
The adminstration compressed the exams to three days from the usual practice of a week to increase the total number of teaching days. However, classrooms remained empty on September 10, 11 and 12 as students were preparing for exams.
The pattern meant that students had to appear for two to three examinations on the same day for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
“It is a burden for students who are reappearing, and can lead to abnormal stress levels, while making a mockery of the evaluation process,” said member.
The letter alleged that many exams were delayed by half-an-hour or more as the papers came late.
This was compounded by a lack of coordination in seating plans and room allotment. In certain cases, even basic information on student number and seating capacity of the rooms was missing.
D K Bandyopadhyay, vice chancellor of the university, said he is not on campus and will look into the matter when he reached office.