HYDERABAD: Was there any foul play behind the fire accident at Osmania University on June 5, where close to 8,000 unevaluated answer sheets were gutted? The university vice chancellor S Ramachandram, for his part, ruled out the possibility. He said it was “purely an accident” for which the university took complete responsibility.
Speaking further, Ramachandram said the university was facing a space crunch in storing lakhs of answer sheets of students studying in various colleges affiliated to OU. Every semester, the university has to handle about 15 lakh answer papers sent from 721 colleges. As a result, the vice chancellor said, plans to go for online evaluation of exam papers holds significance.
This will be achieved by uploading answer sheets online, which would be electronically sent to evaluators for correction, thus reducing risk of answer sheets getting destroyed in accidents as well as solving the problem of storage space.
Ramachandran said the process will be initiated in a phased manner, starting with engineering courses and later extending the same to MBA and UG courses. A team of officials headed by the VC visited the Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belagavi, which has already implemented such a system.
Awaiting funds from govt for Centenary block
Prof Ramachandram said that the university has already initiated construction works worth `30 crore to utilise the `50 crore released to it by the State government last year. Administrative sanction, he said, has been granted for construction of a new centenary administration block
Colleges not showing interest in autonomy
The VC also pointed out that granting autonomy to colleges will help not just in allowing colleges to design their own innovative courses but will also reduce burden of correcting lakhs of copies at the University as colleges can correct copies themselves. However, he said that many colleges were not coming forward to apply for autonomy