the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goa University’s (GU) plan to disseminate question papers online to its affiliated colleges for the upcoming semester-end examination could run into rough weather with many principals flagging the unpreparedness of colleges to implement the new system.
At a meeting of principals and GU officials held at the GU on Monday, many principals expressed their apprehensions about the system to be implemented for the first time in less than three weeks. Yet, even with the exams less than three weeks away, the affiliated colleges have not yet been inspected to ensure that they have the necessary hardware and software infrastructure in place for the online system to be implemented.
The GU has outsourced the task of implementing the new online system of disseminating question papers, to an agency, a principal who was in attendance at Monday’s meeting told The Goan.
The agency, however, has not yet started visiting the colleges, thus leading the principals to raise apprehensions that the system could have glitches. Especially worried, were principals of colleges that offer traditional graduation courses like BA/BSc.
“Each stream has many combinations, and students, and sometimes, question papers run into upto 16 pages. So principals were worried about the amount of time it would take to print the question papers,” one principal of a South Goa college told The Goan.
When contacted, another principal of a North Goa college said, “Of course we are open to the idea of trying a new system that involves technology. It has worked in other universities in India. But the GU could have sent the agency to test the hardware preparedness of the colleges back in August. We are already in October, and there may not be enough time since the exams are fast approaching.”
Yet another principal told The Goan that there were many things to be considered before trying to implement such a big change in the system. “What if the computer crashes?” demanded the principal. The GU has said that a person from the agency will be at the end of a helpline to help the college solve any problem they may face, but principals continued to remain apprehensive.
With the new online system, each college needs to have one computer dedicated to this new system. The computer will have face recognition. Four or five officials’ faces will be registered in the computer. Once face
recognition is done, the official will enter a passcode which will be sent to a mobile number and email registered only for this purpose. Then, the officials download the paper and print out as many copies the college requires. The online system has already been tried at the GMC and GEC and was successful.
Some principals at the meeting were not aware that the GU had already decided to implement this new system from this month, and were under the assumption that the implementation was still some time in the future. The Controller of Examinations (CoE) is reported to have tried to put the principals at ease, and told them that there would not be any glitches in the system which has already been tried and tested elsewhere, at universities which are far bigger.
A mock online-paper exercise will be held sometime late this month, although the date for the same has not yet been fixed.
The Goan had reported on September 14 that the Vice Chancellor had conveyed the proposal to go online, to the principals, earlier in the month. At the time, many principals had not wished to comment, as they were still unsure whether the system would be implemented or not.
