Back to unsupervised online tests for university students

 Back to unsupervised online tests for university students

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Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

23.01.2022

Chennai: Universities in Tamil Nadu will return to unsupervised online exams from February1, the higher education department decided on on Friday.

This also shows that state universities are yet to come out with credible online tests despite the pandemic being on for nearly two years. The online exams can only be called written assignments as there is no monitoring or supervision, say academicians.

They want proctored online exams where each student would receive a different set of questions to prevent malpractices such as mass copying.

Professors want the government to come out with a mechanism for monitoring exams through apps such as Google Meet or MS Teams. They also want centralised  evaluation to make it neutral. Some suggest conducting viva along with theory exams to help distinguish hard working students from others.

“Downloading question papers and writing answers in pen and paper mode at home and sending photos or posting answer sheets is not an online exam. Online exams should be conducted without pen and paper,” said E Balagurusamy, former vicechancellor of Anna University.

Only Anna University conducted a proctored online exam last year. Citing withholding of results for a large number of students, the state government ordered a re-exam for engineering students.

“The engineering colleges which had less than 10% pass percentage also have 95% pass in unsupervised online exam. The overall pass percentage is 98%. The uni- versities should conduct proctored tests,” he said.

In Madras University, more than 99% of students cleared exams in the previous semester, against 70% during the offline mode.

Autonomous colleges like Loyola are monitoring exams through apps such as Google Meet with three layers of supervision.

Universities say proctored online tests are not possible due to poor internet connectivity.

Madras University vice chancellor S Gowri said students from rural areas may not be able to attend proctored online tests due to poor network connectivity.

“The proctored objective exam could have been modified with a descriptive type exam. However, we have to follow the government's decision,” Anna University vice chancellor R Velraj said.