Not even one student has passed in six of the affiliated colleges of Anna University in the November/December 2018 semester examinations. A total of 682 students appeared for the exams under the B.E/B.Tech degree programmes from these colleges.

Last year, of these six poor performing colleges, two did not feature in the university’s allotment list of students. One institution though mentioned in the list did not admit any student.

Dismal record

A cursory view of the admission pattern in the 73 affiliated institutions that have registered less than 10% pass this semester shows that a few have managed to admit one or two students in the second and third round itself. But more than 75% of their seats have remained vacant.

Among the good performing colleges, only 59 institutions have seen a pass percentage of over 50 in the semester. In the best performing college, only 85.57% of the students have passed.

University officials maintain that they were abiding by a Court directive by releasing the performance of the colleges in the previous semester. “It is no analysis but simply raw data,” an official explained.

Colleges that manage to admit around 95% or more of its allotted intake have ensured that their performance does not fall, university officials said.

Moderation

The university follows a system of moderation, where the subject committee has the authority to award as much as 10 marks based on the difficulty level of the question paper.

“The teacher in a college has no idea of the difficulty level of a question paper. Hence the concept of moderation was introduced,” a professor explained.

The moderation also helped to tide over the variation in the pass percentage that the colleges posted in the internal exams.

Under the scheme, the committee had the authority to award as much as 10 marks, which led to improved results as candidates who failed by a few marks managed to qualify in the subject.

Over the years, some Vice-Chancellors also used their discretionary powers to award additional marks, termed by professors as special moderation.

“But the present V-C has decided not to go beyond his statutory powers,” a professor said.

Officials in the know of the examination process justified the use of moderation.

“Moderation is necessary for affilated colleges and what we give is justified. It reflects the quality of the students and the performance of the students admitted to the self financing colleges,” he said.