COIMBATORE: With universities holding online open-book semester exams due to the impact of Covid -19, education experts have urged the higher education department to instruct universities to not rank students for at least the next two years.
Education Development Committee coordinator K Leninbarathi told TNIE, "Undergraduate students wrote four-semester exams online and postgraduate students wrote three since the pandemic started. While many students in rural areas struggled to write exams due to a lack of online facilities, some managed to do well by the open-book method. Based on such scores, how can the universities give ranks to students?"
He urged the universities to stop ranking the students and releasing the list. An assistant professor in a private college said, "A few students who got high marks in offline exam performed poorly in the online exam. Some students did not opt for the open-book method. So assessing the students on one level may not be accurate."
"Moreover, the college name was mentioned on the students' answer script, so some evaluators evaluated the scripts with a biased opinion of the students," he said.
Tamil Nadu Government College Teachers Association president T Veeramani told TNIE, "Even during the open-book exam, some students cheated on the test. So the universities should reconsider its rank list."
Responding to the claims, Bharathiar University Vice-Chancellor P Kaliraj told TNIE, "Online or offline exam, students who are toppers will remain toppers and get a rank. The rank-list will not affect anybody adversely."
Officials of the higher education department were not available for comment.