Anna University: End Semester Exams for Final Year Students to be Held Online

More than 20,000 engineering students with a job offer eagerly awaiting the start of their careers, Anna University has decided to take the final-semester exams for final-year students as online proctoring tests by the end of this month.

Anna University is the first state university to decide to take an online exam in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis.

Students without digital devices and Internet connectivity will be given the option of taking offline exams later.

The final exams are crucial as they would help validate the degrees and help early on-board recruited students.

The one-hour screening test will be performed separately for each subject, multiple-choice questions will be asked, and candidates will be monitored by artificial intelligence tools that record students ' physical movements, computer screen use, and audio to prevent malpractice.

The university tendered tenders for the conduct of the test, estimated to cost Rs 1.9 crore, for students from affiliated colleges and university departments.

Also Read: Anna University yet to publish list of affiliated colleges, causes consternation among engineering candidates

"We have decided to conduct an online exam to protect the future of students. It will make their degrees credible and facilitate their early onboarding and higher education, "said M K Surappa, vice-chancellor of the university.

Due to the loss of working days, some portions could not be taught and the university decided to drop one of the five units in each subject for the final exams.

"We will provide 30 per cent weighting for the online test and 70 per cent weighting for internal assessment and project work," said Surappa.

When asked, the Autonomous Colleges said they were also thinking about conducting an online test for final year students.

University Grants Commission (UGC) has instructed all universities to conduct online or offline exams for final year students, a move challenged by the Supreme Court. Academicians, however, said graduates of professional courses like BE, BTech needed some form of assessment prior to graduation.

The state government has promoted all students except the final year to the next year without exams and has written to the Ministry of Human Resources Development to cancel the final year exams for students as well, but there is still no response.

Also Read: Anna University Results 2020: Semester Results, Revaluation, Evaluation Scheme, Admit Card

Meanwhile, KM Karthik, president of the Private Educational Institutions Employees Association, said that the university collected fees for the cancelled exams and insisted that it should not collect fees for the next sem exams. University officials, however, said the state government approved the collection of exam fees.