West Bengal’s largest body of college and university teachers has written to the UGC that some universities are holding online exams despite the resumption of on-campus academic activities and has sought from the regulator “clear instructions for offline exams”.
“We strongly feel that now that the pandemic is gradually receding and offline classes have resumed in all the academic institutions across the country, there should be a guideline from the UGC with clear instructions for offline exams,” says the letter, signed by Keshab Bhattacharya, general secretary of the West Bengal College and University Teachers’ Association (WBCUTA).
Bhattacharya said they were against online exams because the transparency of the process is under a cloud. “We hope a directive from the UGC will force these universities to correct their course,” said Bhattacharya.
West Bengal State University, Barasat; Vidyasagar University, Midnapore; and Kalyani University are among the ones that have said they would conduct exams online.
Subhoday Dasgupta, president of the association, said they had last month written to state education minister Bratya Basu pleading for offline exams because “the online mechanism is not transparent”.
“We have approached the UGC because we are not happy with the arbitrary manner (regarding conducting exams) being followed by these universities. This is nothing but mockery of the examination system,” Dasgupta said.
The principal of a college, who is a member of the teachers’ association, said they were opposed to online exams because the colleges lack resources to hold proctored tests.
“We have learnt from the experience of the pandemic-induced shutdown of campuses over the past two years that students hardly subject themselves to self-invigilation,” he said.
Proctored tests are timed exams during which the faculty monitors the examinees’ computers and webcam video and audio. Through the monitoring mechanism the institute seeks to ensure that the students do not consult books or online articles or take help from others while writing the answers.
“School students recently wrote their Madhyamik and higher secondary examinations offline. So this decision to conduct online exams in universities lacks logic,” the principal said.
The UGC had on July 6, 2020, said final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students would have to appear in exams to get their degrees and that the terminal exams would “be conducted by the universities/institutions by the end of September in offline (pen and paper)/online/blended (online + offline) mode”.
Calcutta University has decided to hold the end-semester exams offline disregarding protests by some students.
The association fears that those writing the exams offline, under the watch of invigilators, would end up scoring less marks than those who would write the papers online and that would mean discriminating against one section of students.
Calls and text messages to UGC chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar, to whom the teachers’ letter was addressed, went unanswered.
