The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Postgraduate students in a fix

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 27, 2006

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

Postgraduate students in a fix

G.Krishnakumar

Delay in exam schedule upsets academic programmes at MGU

KOCHI: Erratic exam schedules and failure to streamline the semester system have put postgraduate students of Mahatma Gandhi University in a tight spot.

The final semester examinations to be conducted after the mandatory 90 days have been postponed to February 8 causing a breakdown of the restructured postgraduate semester courses. The university had already postponed the examinations twice in January.

Students in the university's affiliated colleges in Kochi who do not want to be quoted say that fourth semester candidates have not yet received their first semester results.

The first semester postgraduate programmes offered by the university had begun in July 21 last year. Students say that frequent changes in the examination calendar have affected the smooth progress of various academic programmes.

Moreover, the university has not announced the commencement and termination dates of teaching segments during a semester, landing the students in trouble. College teachers point out that the university's decision to combine private and off-campus valuation work created this impasse. Regular teachers in affiliated colleges were compulsorily drawn into the examination work of self-financing and off-campus courses. Teaching work had been hit, as several teachers were deputed for examination work related to self-financing courses.

Teachers are demanding that the regular and self-financing/ off-campus streams should be separated to save the regular courses in affiliated colleges of the varsity.

The varsity had received brickbats for collecting an additional fee from students for centralised valuation of their postgraduate examination papers. Despite charging the fees, the varsity had not been able to publish results on time.

Students and teachers have urged the university officials to have a proper review of course and syllabi for postgraduate programmes. Teachers have suggested that workshops for reviewing and streamlining the programmes should be held regularly.

A proper guideline for evaluation of dissertations should be evolved. The syllabi have not included any concrete suggestion for rating dissertations submitted by students.

Teachers have suggested that the abstracts of dissertations should be made available to colleges under the varsity. This will help in avoiding duplication of work done by students.

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