Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to change the examination pattern in autonomous undergraduate and post-graduate colleges by cancelling the existing system which allowed these colleges to set their own question papers for various degree and PG courses. The colleges will now have to follow the examination papers prepared by the universities under whose purview they are located. The evaluation of answer papers would also be done by the respective universities.
This was decided at a high-level meeting convened by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy at his camp office in Amaravati on Friday.
State education minister Adimulapu Suresh said there were in all 109 autonomous colleges under the purview of various universities. These colleges design their own syllabus for various courses, prepare question papers on their own and conduct examinations for students as per their own schedule, while the degrees are awarded by their respective universities.
“It has come to our notice that some of these colleges had been indulging in large scale irregularities in the conduct of examinations, taking advantage of their autonomous status while enjoying the concessions being given by the government like fee reimbursement scheme,” the minister said.
Stating that such irregularities had resulted in poor quality of education in these colleges, Suresh said the government has decided to act tough with these autonomous colleges and take stringent action against them, if they didn’t mend their ways.
{{/usCountry}}Stating that such irregularities had resulted in poor quality of education in these colleges, Suresh said the government has decided to act tough with these autonomous colleges and take stringent action against them, if they didn’t mend their ways.
{{/usCountry}}“As part of reforming the system in these autonomous colleges, the state government has decided to conduct an academic audit in these colleges and evaluate their academic standards. In the first step, we have decided to do away with the present system of allowing them to prepare question papers on their own for various courses,” he said.
Hereafter, these autonomous colleges would have to follow the examination papers prepared by the universities, which would also take up evaluation of answer sheets. “We shall take up the issue of these autonomous colleges with the University Grants Commission, the nodal agency to grant autonomy for the colleges,” he said.
The minister said since education was a concurrent subject, the state government has every right to take decisions with regard to autonomous colleges. “They cannot take decisions according to their own will. If anybody wants to go to court challenging the government’s decision, they can go. We are ready to counter their move,” he said.
At the review meeting, the chief minister instructed that all the autonomous engineering colleges would follow the same question papers set by Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) for non-autonomous colleges in the state. The JNTU itself would take up the evaluation of the answer papers.
“These steps are being taken to prevent malpractices in the exams and improve the educational standards in the colleges, so that the engineering graduates would get better job opportunities,” Jagan said.