After reports of malpractices, NU will not give colleges exam work – Times of India

Board of Examination and Evaluation (BOEE) director Prafulla Sable said, after receiving complaints, the administration has decided to take back the exam work from colleges to ensure transparency. Bumper results in the summer-2020 exam were also a reason behind it. “We’re conducting all papers of summer-2021 exams commencing from June 29. Because of the pandemic last year, NU had decided to share the burden of final year exams, so that results could be declared quickly,” he told TOI.

Since the last two exams – summer and winter-2020, the university had entrusted colleges with holding exams for courses where student numbers were very less. The move was taken due to inordinate delay on account of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, where the government forced all universities to conduct online papers for ensuring the safety of examinees.

In summer exams last year, NU asked colleges to conduct papers of failed students. It turned out to be a lottery for them as a majority managed to clear the online exams. Even those failing from the last seven to eight years managed to clear the papers with flying colours, which surprised everyone.

In winter exams, NU had allowed colleges to hold postgraduate exams, besides those for repeaters and external students. Recently, Gondia-based Kirsan Mission’s College of Management hogged the limelight after its teacher allegedly asked money from students to clear them in MBA exams conducted by the college. TOI had reported in detail about it on May 30.

NU officials claimed that all colleges indirectly helped their students in all possible ways to clear the exams. “The students were already provided PDFs of multiple choice question (MCQ) papers with their answers by the teachers themselves on their WhatsApp. They are usually given 50 questions and told to prepare from them. The same teachers then set the question paper where the same questions are repeated. A majority of them would clear the subjects.”

A senior NU official disclosed that after summer-2020 exams, where 99% of students managed to clear their papers, they received many calls from former students, who had left education midway as they failed to clear the subjects in multiple attempts. All of them wanted to resume their education to get their degrees and diplomas, considering the guarantee of passing the exams.

“Unlike NU’s proctoring software, the exams conducted by the colleges through Google forms didn’t have anything to catch the examinees using unfair means. It’s all a farce and even the government knows it, but all are helpless” he said.

Why NU took away exams from colleges: Key points

* In summer-2020, NU handed over final year repeaters exams to colleges due to pandemic

* A majority of them cleared papers with flying colours

* In winter-2020, NU entrusted colleges with PG, repeater & external students’ exams

* Complaints of malpractices received by NU, but it couldn’t act due to lack of proof

* Gondia college students complained about a teacher asking money to clear their papers

* BOEE then took the decision to conduct all exams through NU to ensure transparency