TIRUCHY: Bharathidasan University on Friday conducted a mock test online ahead of the exams starting on September 21 (Monday) to familiarise students with the procedure and technology. Most of the students found the servers to be very slow and many were left in the dark about the test.
As UGC has mandated conduction of final year exams, universities have been introducing methods to conduct exams amid the pandemic, ensuring that students need not be in close quarters. BDU decided to conduct exams remotely. In this students can download question papers from internet, write answers on unruled sheets, and submit them.
A student from Tiruchy said, "We were not informed of the mock test. I am in various groups with friends and classmates on WhatsApp from the university, but no one alerted me about it."
A senior staff in the university told TNIE that less than half of the students took the exams. More than 50,000 students in PG and UG final year are to take the exam from Monday.
Another student from an affiliated college said, "It took over an hour to download the paper. Some of my classmates could not download the paper on time. So they did not take the test at all. As we logged in with our registration number and password, we did not want to share the question paper over Whatsapp or email. We were worried if one submitted answers without having any record of logging in to download the question paper."
The papers can be submitted online by emailing or handed over at the university and affiliated colleges itself.
A BDU senior faculty who organised the exam told TNIE, "Many would have not attended. Technical issues would be fixed during the actual exam."