The Hindu
Mangalore, Nov 28: The Mangalore University has decided to reduce the number of examination papers of its undergraduate courses under the credit-based semester scheme.
Undergraduate students may heave a sigh of relief now as they have been all along forced to write twice the number of examination papers under the current scheme vis-a-vis the annual scheme. Teachers too had been complaining that they were being over-burdened under the semester scheme.
University sources told The Hindu that the decision to this effect was taken at a meeting between the office-bearers of the Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT) and the university authorities held on Wednesday.
It was decided that a committee, headed by T. Thimme Gowda, senior professor who had also served as acting Vice-Chancellor of the university, be constituted to prepare the pattern of new examination. The committee would comprise at least three degree college principals, faculty and officials of the university and representatives of the AMUCT. It was expected to prepare the pattern of examination in a month, sources said.
After finalising the examination pattern, the university will have to amend its regulations governing the credit-based semester scheme. The amendments will be placed before the joint faculty and later before the academic council for approval.
The Government will have to approve the amended regulations before implementation from the 2009-10 academic year.
Internal assessment
The university recently took another decision to increase the internal assessment marks of each subject in undergraduate and post-graduate courses from 20 to 30 from next academic year. Consequently, the marks for external assessment through regular examinations will come down from 80 to 70 a subject.
The examination pattern would be revised accordingly, sources said.
Semester scheme
The university introduced the credit-based semester scheme for its undergraduate courses from 2006-07. The university had to switch over to semester scheme following a directive of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to all the universities.
Unlike in the annual scheme, the university has been conducting examinations twice a year under the semester scheme for the past two-and-a-half years. As the number of papers increased under the semester scheme, pressure on teachers to evaluate answer scripts and attend examination-related work increased.
As a result, the university was forced to postpone the commencement of classes for second semester degree courses by 11 days this year. The classes for the second, fourth and sixth semesters, which were supposed to have commenced from December 1, would now be commencing from December 11, sources said.
Meanwhile, the university, announcing the re-opening date as December 11, has said that action would be initiated as per law against colleges preferring to open before this date.
Burden on students
The burden on students too has increased under the semester scheme.
Students now have to write double the number of papers a year as they have to appear for two examinations in one academic year. This had deprived students of time for extra and co-curricular activities, sources said and added that the university had to consider all these issues while deciding to reduce the number of examination papers for degree courses.