Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 21

While this used to be the time for the conduct of examination for the semester batches in colleges as per the pre-Covid university calendars but this year the situation as of now hangs in the air with regards to the examination.

The collegiates have said with the pandemic at its peak they still do not know as to when their examination would be conducted. “We don’t even know whether our examination would be taken online or offline. We also are completely uncertain as to whether the examination pattern this time would be the usual subjective paper kind or the newly-floated MCQ style,” Priya Bassi, a student of BCom fourth semester said.

Guru Nanak Dev University authorities are learnt to have recently told the colleges to take the student preference on the kind of mode of examination and the pattern they want. While some colleges are learnt to have preferred online, MCQ kind, majority of the students it is learnt have opted for subjective, offline examination. With a completely mixed reaction, even the college and the university authorities are learnt to have not been able to make a mind as to which system should be evolved for this semester’s assessment.

Divyanshi, a BA final year student, said, “For the past five semesters, we have been tuned for subjective type question paper. Changing the pattern in the last semester is completely uncalled for. In the last four months of this semester we have been preparing ourselves only according to subjective type paper. Even our teachers are confused now and have said that even they have no clue on how the examination would be conducted and what kind of preparation they should go ahead with.”

Principal HMV College and vice-president of the principals’ association, Dr Ajay Sareen, said, “We are expecting the examination to be held somewhere around June-end or July-beginning. We have got the choice filling form from the students done and sent to the university. So far, no final decision of the university has been conveyed to us.”

Staff to work from home till May 31

• While the staff members had been working to 50 per cent capacity, all the teaching staff has now been asked to work from home till May 31. The college officials said they on Friday received new orders from DPI Colleges, as per which the staff had been instructed to operate from home till the end of month. “So for the next 10 days, all teachers will take online classes from their places,” said HMV College principal Dr Ajay Sareen.