BPharm 3rd sem students too complain about out-of-syllabus ques

Nagpur: On the day a serious breach in conduct of Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) exam surfaced, two complaints of out-of-syllabus questions also came up during the first and third semester Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) exams in Nagpur University (NU).
In the BPharm first-semester Pharmaceutical Analysis I paper on Thursday, the exact number of suspect questions were still being verified by colleges. They will soon file a complaint with NU exam section.

A couple of days earlier, third semester BPharm students had approached the NU administration complaining that two questions worth 20 marks were not part of their course, during their exam on December 19.

This has taken the number of such mistakes to 12 during the ongoing winter exam, with one of them being about missing questions while the rest were out of syllabus.

Top officials have been downplaying the incidents, claiming the numbers were negligible when compared to over 1,000 exams ‘successfully’ held by NU. So far, NU has admitted only one question in LLB to be ‘out of syllabus’ from among the 10 complaints accepted by it.

Both, Pro-VC Pramod Yeole and Director of Examinations and Evaluation Neeraj Khaty, didn’t answer TOIs repeated messages and calls.

The 3rd-semester students said question number 3(e) and 3(i) were completely out of syllabus. Question 2(a) was also out of syllabus, and only somewhat related to a topic in the syllabus, they said. They said the actual content of the answer would have been insufficient for a 10-mark question and therefore unjustified.

Teachers from the faculty said similar issues have been reported previously and, just like PG students, UG students were sent back by officials. The officials now claim at least 40% examinees must complain before they will consider whether the paper was out of syllabus and initiate action.

They also said that officials have been keeping several complaints under wraps to protect those appointed by them to key bodies governing examinations. TOI has reported about BCom, LLB, BSc papers, while complaints from MSc (10-mark), two different batches of BE (mechanical), BArch and one unidentified course have been kept under wraps by NU, said sources.

TIMELINE

Dec 20 | BPharma 1st sem students complain about out of syllabus questions

Dec 19 | BPharma 3rd sem students complain of 3 questions out of syllabus

Dec 12 | MPharm students get incomplete question paper

Dec 11 | BSc third-semester old pattern students claim 25-mark questions as per new syllabus in electronics paper

Nov 15 | BALLB fourth semester (CBS) students allege 7 out of syllabus questions worth 27 marks

Dec 3 | BCom students claim two questions worth 16 marks out of syllabus