The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Drop continuous internal assessment, pleads AUT

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Drop continuous internal assessment, pleads AUT

Special Correspondent

`Marks scored do not reflect the real merit of students'

COIMBATORE: The Association of University Teachers (AUT) has appealed to the Bharathiar University to drop the continuous internal assessment (CIA) for undergraduate and postgraduate courses from the current academic year.

In a statement here, the president of the association, N. Senthamarai, alleged that neither did the marks scored in the CIA reflect the real merit of the student nor had the internal assessment scheme lessened their exploitation.

He said that even at the time of the introduction of the scheme in 2004-05, the teacher organisations forewarned the authorities of this "futile exercise" overlooking many factors— absence of a full complement of staff in most of the colleges, continuance of those practical difficulties that forced the University of Madras drop the CIA component in the 80s, the possible exploitation of this scheme towards favouritism as well as profiteering by commercially motivated managements, undue interference by the managements hampering genuine assessment of students by teachers and in some cases entailing their victimisation, the late publication of results, etc.

He said that after a year of the implementation of this scheme in Bharathiar University, "we find that there is no correlation between marks scored under internal assessment and external examinations".

Stand vindicated

He said students who had scored 25 out of 25 marks in the internal assessment had fared poorly in the external examinations. He alleged that there were reports of levy of extra fees for students towards the CIA scheme in some colleges and favouring senior students with full marks in the internal assessment on their procuring more freshers for the first year courses. In the absence of any provision for students who had scored poor marks in the internal assessment, the University had now decided to do away with minimum marks for a pass under internal assessment retrospectively. "All these undesirable developments vindicate the reservations expressed by teacher organisations."

Prof. Senthamarai said in the absence of passing minimum for internal assessment and in the backdrop of unfilled vacancies of more than 40 per cent in the teaching posts in Government and aided colleges, the mere cosmetic continuance of the internal assessment scheme called for a "clear rethinking" by university authorities.

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