PU panel recommends offline exam facility in rural colleges

All proposals require the vice-chancellor’s approvals. PU’s online exams for the final semesters of undergraduate and postgraduate courses are scheduled to start from September 17

A Panjab University (PU) panel on Sunday recommended that arrangements be made for offline exams in rural colleges for students who might face WiFi connectivity problems or not have computers or mobile phones for appearing in online exams.

A member of the panel who attended the meeting said recommendations had been made for arrangements to conduct offline exams on campus by following Covid-19 precautionary norms in colleges primarily in rural areas where connectivity was an issue or where students had no mobile phone or desktop available . (Getty Images/iStockphoto/For representation)

The recommendation was made by the panel after it factored in technical difficulties likely to be faced by students in rural areas.

Headed by PU’s dean university instruction (DUI) RK Singla, the panel met on Saturday and Sunday.

The university’s online exams for the final semesters of undergraduate and postgraduate courses are scheduled to start from September 17. The question paper will be available to students 10 minutes before the exam on PU’s official website.

A member of the panel who attended the meeting said recommendations had been made for arrangements to conduct offline exams on campus by following Covid-19 precautionary norms in colleges primarily in rural areas where connectivity was an issue or where students had no mobile phone or desktop available for online exams.

PU has 196 affiliated colleges mostly in Punjab with a few in rural areas.

The university will set up around 40 nodal centres for the smooth conduct of exams.

Among other recommendations, the panel said colleges/ centres and departments should be reimbursed the expenditure of online examination at the rate of ₹15 per student for a single paper. Evaluators should also be paid ₹15 per answer sheet.

A proposal regarding the matter has been forwarded to the finance and development officer of the university. All these payments will be made after submission of the expenditure bill.

For online exams on Sundays, the panel said answer sheets could be despatched the next day in a sealed envelope.

Meanwhile, Students Organisation of India (SOI), PU, has launched helpline numbers for students facing problems during exams. “If a student faces any issue with online exams, he or she can contact us and we will take queries of the students to university authorities for their solution,” said Chetan Chaudhary of SOI.