Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

A race against time to pass supplementary exams

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Four new textbooks and 15 days to master them well enough to write an examination.

This is the daunting task before the BA and B.Sc. candidates of the 2004 admissions of the University of Kerala who failed to clear the English papers after appearing for these examinations three times.

The September examinations of 2007 were the last chance for these candidates to write the examinations under the syllabus that they had studied.

These examinations were eventually held in March 2008 and the results were published on May 9.

The last date for the failed candidates to apply for reappearance is May 19. They will write the examinations, for the fourth time, which begin on May 26, along with the candidates of the 2005 admissions.

The syllabus for the 2005 admission candidates has four new textbooks for the English papers for the BA and B.Sc. courses and one new textbook for the B.Com. course.

The question that many academics are asking is how will candidates who have already failed three times manage to study all these new textbooks in two weeks or so and still manage to pass the examinations?

That is not all. These “reappearance” candidates have become an administrative nightmare for the university staff who often have to issue them hall tickets in the shortest possible time.

Though this issue has been discussed repeatedly at various levels in the university, nobody has yet come up with a solution.

There are some academics who argue that failed candidates should be given just three chances. If they still fail, they should be asked to re-register for the course — as a regular student would — and then write the examinations again. This will prevent the ‘four-textbooks-in-15-days’ situations, these teachers reason.

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