Colleges conduct mock tests to prepare students for offline exams

CHENNAI: In view of the State government’s order to conduct offline examinations for students, the colleges in the city are chalking out strategies to prepare the students for the same.While some colleges started conducting mock tests and surprise tests to assess the ability of the students, a few others planned to conduct surveys to gauge the learning gap among students. As students will be appearing for offline examinations almost after two years of online education, the colleges want to ensure that they can write the papers properly.

Principals of different city colleges said that due to the online medium of study and examination, many students have forgotten to write long answers. Adding to it, the students are suffering from attention deficit problems and are unable to concentrate and sit for three hours. Hence, they are devising methods to make students well-versed to write papers.

“We will start conducting continuous internal assessment examinations for final-year students from next week. We will monitor their performances during these assessments and take remedial measures if needed,” said Santhosh Baboo, the Principal of DG Vaishnav College. He also mentioned that the college will be conducting a detailed survey among students and teachers to find out if they are facing problems in understanding any particular subject. Based on the information, remedial classes may be organised.

A few colleges in the city like MOP Vaishnav have already started conducting surprise tests and mock tests to train the students to write papers. Colleges are worried about the global emergence of the Omicron variant but still, they believe conducting the physical examination is the only way to ensure quality education for students.

“The new variant is a cause of concern but it is not wise to skip physical examination at all. We have made all the arrangements to conduct offline examinations from January 20. Not more than 25 students will be allowed to sit in one classroom,” said M G Ragunathan, Principal of Guru Nanak College.

Apart from government arts and science colleges, engineering colleges are also busy completing syllabus for final-year students on a priority basis. “We are not receiving good feedback from companies visiting our campus for student placement. It’s difficult for them to find out the best students from the lot. To resolve the issue, we are conducting tests and personal interviews to prepare them,” said S Senthil, Principal of a private engineering college in Coimbatore.