BENGALURU: Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) has agreed to change its software for conducting online examinations, following protests by students. The Students of MIT, a constituent of Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), had taken to social media with a call to boycott their online sessional exams scheduled from June 8, saying the institute had asked them to use a software that allegedly contained virus which crashed their systems.
Reacting to the protest and appeals from students, MIT director agreed to conduct the exams on an alternative platform. They stated that students of MAHE’s International Centre for Applied Sciences (ICAS) who had appeared for their exams recently had faced issues with the software and their systems blacked out and laptops stopped working for a day.
“The ICAS students couldn’t complete their exams. The MIT students are also asked to install the software. The moment we install it, the system acts up and flashes a notification stating ‘disable antivirus in the device and install it’. If our computers crash, we can’t study for the next day’s exam as most of the study materials are in them,” said a student.
While Dr Narayana Sabhahit, registrar, MAHE said, “The institute is taking steps to ensure that students’ interests are taken care of. If any student fails to appear for the end semester examination over genuine reasons, they can write the examination when they are back on the campus.” On Saturday evening, a circular signed by the MIT director stated, “In view of the concern related to the online platform, the sessional test will now be conducted using Microsoft Teams. The second sessional test will be on June 10 instead of June 8.”