Srinagar, May 07: Ever-since the implementation of semester system in Kashmir University (KU) affiliated colleges, the students pursuing undergraduate courses have remained at the receiving end of this “flawed” system.
Following guidelines of University Grants Commission (UGC), the semester system was adopted by the varsity in 2015 with an aim “to improve quality of education” in colleges. But the said academic system is far from achieving its goals, leave alone improving the quality of education!
‘Kashmir Images’ has carried a series of stories highlighting the flaws of semester system in colleges including the delayed exams and result declaration which have left the thousands of undergraduates frustrated and confused.
As the Kashmir University released the 3rd semester undergraduate evaluation status after a gap of almost one year on April 28, the students have been left regretting not only the delay in result announcement but they also complain about “huge discrepancies” in the evaluation status.
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Scores of undergraduate students told this newspaper that they have found huge discrepancies in the recently released 3rd semester evaluation status and it is only by consulting an answer key that they could get those discrepancies officially reviewed. But that’s not available.
“After consulting the carbon copy of our Optical Mark Reading (OMR) sheets, the variation in the evaluation status became apparent to us. There is no official key on the basis of which we can raise objections with KU authorities,” said the students.
The students said that they have every right to demand answer keys as it would be an indication of transparent evaluation process. “We are confident that there are variations in the evaluation status, but we cannot prove the same without having an answer key at our disposal,” they added.
A group of students from Government College for Women, MA road Srinagar told ‘Kashmir Images’ that it has been a week since they asked the KU authorities to provide them the answer key but have been “receiving a cold response from the controller examination”.
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Pertinently, beginning this year, the undergraduates will be only attempting the objective type papers in their 2nd, 4th and 6th semesters.
“Now that KU has decided to set the examination pattern as objective in our ‘even semesters’, the answer keys become vital to the evaluation process and status,” said the undergraduate students of 2018-Batch.
“The purpose of the objective paper is to test the objective knowledge of the candidates, and without the answer keys the said purpose is never achieved, neither by us nor our teachers.”
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When Deputy Controller Examination was asked that undergraduates from different colleges are alleging variations and discrepancies in their 3rd semester evaluation status, he said that variations which were reported by the undergraduates studying in colleges of south Kashmir have been resolved.
The official was also told that students are demanding that KU should release answer keys of question papers so that they could bring out the discrepancies to the notice of officials.
To this, he said, “I am not authorized to speak over the issue; controller examination is the competent authority to entertain this query of yours.”
Many senior officials at KU also acknowledged and emphasized the need for making the answer keys available on the varsity website, but insisted that they be not identified.
