Punjab Technical University (PTU), it seems, is minting money out of re-evaluation and re-examination.
An analysis of four-year data reveals that no less than 6.35 lakh university students flunked one paper or another. The number is astronomical as it amounts to more than 50 percent of candidates, semester after semester, for consecutive three years.
The data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveals that between the years 2010 to 2013, a total of 11,31,954 students appeared in examinations under different stream offered by the university. And a shocking 6,37,253 students re-appeared in one exam or the other.
The data reveals that in some of the semesters, more than 60 percent of the total examinees get re-appear, such as in May 2011 examinations, a total of 1,31,296 students had appeared in exams and out of which 85,183 got re-appear in their results.
The number of re-appearance of exam attains significance as the data provided by university itself reveals that the conduct of exams become a big source of earning for the university.
As per the data, in the given period, the university collected a sum of Rs 168,45,95,272 as examination fee and had to spend a sum of Rs 29,66,45,382 for the conduct of examinations. The amount spent on conduct of exams comes to only 17 percent of the total collection as examination fee.
Raising a serious concern over the high number of re-appearance of students in exams, a former university student Navdeep Singh said that the number of re-appear itself says a lot about the educational and practical standards of education in the college.
Navdeep, who had sought the information under RTI, says that the students, who get re-appear in exams, not only had to pay the fee for the supplementary exams but most of the students also go for re-evaluation of their exams.
“Due to the late schedule of declaration of re-evaluations and application for re-appear exams, all the students have to apply for re-appear, whether they are cleared in re-evaluation or not” said Navdeep.
Navdeep said that the university was making easy money on the name of re-appear and re-evaluation, as this income is out of the ambit of the expected sources of income for the university.
He said that he had serious doubts on the marking methods of the university and that is why, he had applied under RTI for getting the answer sheet of his own exam, in which he had left the answer sheet blank, but was awarded passing marks.
Putting light on the ‘erroneous practices’ going on in the education sector, former lecturer lalit Sharma said that such a large number of re-appearing of students, semester after semester, do indicate that either the mode of admission or the structure of examination process was faltering somewhere.
He said that during his stint as lecturer in one of the technical college under PTU, he himself had noticed some of the clerical staff tampering with the records of the students.
