REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE ONLY
What if you are made to write three exams back-to-back in a single day? Quite a task. Isn't it? Such is the situation faced by the students of Lucknow's Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, more commonly known as AKTU or APJAKTU. Not just this, students have been complaining of a changed exam format and demanding online exams in place of the scheduled offline exams.
The exams are slated to begin from September 8.
"We have three theory subjects and AKTU has scheduled offline exams of all three subjects in a single day, i.e, on September 8. The exams will be conducted back to back with half-an-hour gap between each," a BTech student wrote. He said that the changed exam format has further added to their woes. "Even in normal circumstances, conducting three exams in a single day would have been a very harsh decision for students, and imagine they have planned it when we are in between a pandemic situation," another said.
"If students were to come in contact with COVID-19 positive students, they will definitely get infected. Online classes were useless and were done only for the sake of formality. Nothing has been taught and they will take exams in MCQ format which is even more difficult," a student said.
"MCQ pattern is an injustice to the students who have no touch with the syllabus," another added.
A student said: "Many of us, including me, have to travel 800km to reach exm center then write paper for full day and return to home and for all this while being in the mask. Will have to search for hotels to stay and eat streetside food. They had already taken project presentation online and everyone gave that without any fuss. All we want is an online exam," one said.
Meanwhile, Allahabad University has decided to conduct its final year and final semester examinations this year in digital mode. While these examinations will begin from the second week of September, the other students will be directly promoted to the next semester. The university had already conducted the graduation examinations for nine days before the nationwide lockdown was announced due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
AKTU students are asking their varsity to follow the footsteps of Allahabad University and go ahead with online exams.
