ABVP raises objection on TDC online exam guidelines of Assam Univ, demands for revised SOP

Sept. 17: Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Cachar district unit has raised severe objections to the recently issued TDC Non-CBCS guidelines for online final semester examination. In this connection, ABVP gave a memorandum to the Vice Chancellor of Assam University on Thursday, wherein they raised the demand of issuing a revised guideline making it student friendly.

ABVP stated that as per the Point No. 2 of the said guidelines issued on 15 September by the Controller of Examinations, online examination shall be conduct through “GOGGLE MEET”. But according to Google, time limit for non-subscribed user will be reduced to 60 minutes from 30th September. So it will be impossible for a student to be in the Google meet platform for entire exam period of 2 hours. This will result in complete disruption of the meeting. Besides, a college cannot accommodate more than 250 students in a meeting.

They also mentioned that taking into consideration the network speed and the data usage of the Google meet, it is quite impossible for a student to remain constantly in the meeting without any disruption for 2 long hours. Using Google meet and Google Classroom simultaneously on a single device is also quite Impossible. If a student switch over to the question paper, his/her camera will automatically be turned off which means the points are itself contradictory in nature. The authority should use any other platform instead of Google Meet for surveillance.

ABVP then went on to say that if a student for any moment gets disconnected from Google meet, he/she should not be marked as absent or disqualified from the examination. It should be mentioned here that on 9th July, 2020, ABVP Assam Pradesh in its memorandum to the Vice Chancellor requested to conduct the final semester exam online as per UGC guidelines and requested to develop a full proof system to conduct the online examination.

The next issue highlighted in the memorandum is about re-evaluation. As per the Point No 1(e) of the said  notification, there will be no revaluation for the students who would appear in online mode of examination. Whereas there is no such provision mentioned in the UGC guidelines regarding not to allow students for opting re-evaluation after appearing in online mode. There should not be any restriction on Re-evaluation for students appearing in both offline and online students.

As per UGC revised guidelines issued on 6 July, 2020, any student who is unable to appear in the examination conducted by the University for whatsoever the reason(s) may be, he/she may be given opportunity to appear in special examinations, But the notification regarding the online modules issued by the Assam University do not include such provision. We demand to grant a special chance to appear in the examination to the students who have opted for online mode of exam but have failed to appear due to genuine reasons.

Regarding submission of answer scripts in pdf mode within 20 minutes of the completion of the exam, ABVP expressed serious reservations. In this connection, ABVP wrote, “We demand that the University should increase the stipulated time for scanning/ uploading the answer script. Students appearing in online mode examination should also be given an option to submit their answer script at the nearest affiliated College / Police Station / Post Office for any inconvenience caused or error in uploading the answer script.” It is in this context that Cachar district ABVP raised a strong demand of revising the guidelines incorporating the suggestions put forward by them.

Also read: Assam Univ issues guidelines for TDC Final Sem online exam