JNU’s School of Environment Studies starts online exams

The Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) School of Environmental Sciences on Monday began the online mid-semester examinations for its students to ensure minimal

The Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) School of Environmental Sciences on Monday began the online mid-semester examinations for its students to ensure minimal academic loss during the Covid-19 nationwide lockdown. The school was scheduled to conduct the mid-term exams from March 16, but had to reschedule it after a lockdown was announced on March 22.

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Applauding the move, vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said, “To complete the academic requirements for the MSc and MPhil/PhD degrees, the School of Environmental Sciences, JNU has started the mid-semester exams using digital means from today (April 27) until May 4.”

Last week, the varsity had given the approval for all schools and centres to hold the examinations in their preferred mode -- online, offline, or a combination of both. The School of Environmental Sciences is among the five schools that approved the online mode of examinations. Students who miss these exams can appear for it later as well.

Shairik Sengupta, who is pursuing his masters from SES, was among those who wrote his mid-semester paper on Monday. “We received the question papers via email at around 8am and were given 24 hours to submit the answers. Though the questions I answered today were similar to our offline examinations, there have been concerns over the quality of questions in the remaining papers, especially since this is an open-book examination,” he said.

The second-year MSc student also pointed out that many students did not take their study material with them when they left for their hometowns in the run up to the lockdown. “In addition to slow internet issues, students don’t even have their study material at home. For them, the online examination can be an issue,” he said.

Another student, Saumya Awasthi, said students were also concerned about the submission of their dissertation. “The last day of submission is May 22 and our department has decided to not extend the dates. We need our laboratories to conduct experiments and collect data for our thesis. It is not possible to finish the work even if lockdown restrictions are lifted on May 3,” she said.

Asking to postpone the semester, Raj Maurya, student councillor for SES, said, “This situation is particularly bad for the MSc final year students as they could not start their dissertation work due to the university strike against fee hike from October to January.”