CHENNAI: With postponement of semester examination, Supriya Viswanathan, a final-year engineering student, is worried. She has bagged a good job offer in a multi-national company, but now is worried as delay in completion of her final year may cost her the job.
Like Supriya, several final-year engineering students in the State are spending sleepless nights over the delay in conducting the exams. Many of them are worried that company deadlines for joining will likely expire by the time they finish their course. “We are yet to appear for our seventh and eighth semester examinations. I don’t know when the semester examinations will finish and if we have any arrears, how are we going to appear for that? If we fail to pass the semester exams, our placement offers will get cancelled,” said Supriya.
“I had taken a loan to complete my engineering studies and the job offer is my only hope to repay it. I just cannot afford to lose it. Our exams were scheduled in December, but was postponed,” lamented Manoj Agarwal, an engineering student studying in a private college.
According to faculty members, many IT companies usually give time to students to join by May-end or June. “Despite Covid, this year we witnessed good placements as demand for digitisation has given much-needed boost to the IT sector. The companies also need immediate manpower so it is possible that many of them won’t extend the joining time. The government should do something fast,” said Padma Shankaran, a placement officer at a private engineering college.
Concerned over the problem faced by the final-year engineering students, the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges, has decided to discuss the issue with higher education department and appeal to the State government to allow them to conduct examinations in online mode, at least for final-year students.
“Final-year students should be given priority as their problem is genuine. Many of them have job offers in hand, while others have plans to pursue higher education abroad. We need to conduct the seventh semester exam by February and eighth semester in May to ensure that their course is completed in time,” said TD Eswaramoorthy, joint secretary of the consortium. “If Covid caseload does not decrease by the end of January, the State government should allow us to conduct online exams for final-year students.”
Law university postpones exams
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University on Wednesday announced that all semester examinations, scheduled to begin from January 20, in the varsity and its affiliated colleges, have been postponed in the wake of the rising Covid cases
Pondy univ puts off MBBS exams
Puducherry: The Pondicherry University has postponed the theory examinations of first and second-year MBBS students scheduled from January 17 to February 7 for its affiliated colleges in the wake of spike in Covid-19 cases. The revised schedule will be announced in due course, a communication from the Controller of Examination said. This is applicable to the students of Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute under the Government of Puducherry, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Sri Venkateswara Medical College, Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical college and Hospital and Andaman and Nicobar Islands Institute of Medical Sciences (ANIIMS), Port Blair