Gujarat University Answer sheet Case - Gujarat University teachers to take answer-sheets home

From TOI

Gujarat University teachers to take answer-sheets home

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat University (GU) for the first time will allow its college teachers to take home answer-sheets of the university semester exams to be held from November 30. This decision has been taken to ensure that the teaching work for the second semester is not suspended for over a month - the time needed for checking papers of 80,000-odd students.

"We have allowed lecturers to take answer sheets home for assessment", said a GU official. The decision is yet another desperate attempt to set right the chaos unleashed by haphazard implementation of the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) in the colleges following a state education department directive.

College teachers say that no thought has gone into the implementation of the semester system in BA, BCom and BSc colleges. The end result is that teaching is slated to be the biggest casualty of the system.

"There is a lot of confusion caused by the CBCS. Due to different schedules of the semester system, students too are facing difficulty in getting bus passes", said college teacher Sanjay Bhave.

"Exams of the first semester beginning November 30 will last for a fortnight. After that, there would be Christmas vacation. Teaching for the second semester will begin in January which will give only three and half month of proper teaching time for the second semester. If teachers were not allowed to take exam papers home, the teaching time would be further reduced by a month. This is not the way university teaching should be pursued", said a teacher. Only 70 per cent syllabus in the first semester was covered in the first semester and in the second semester too is expected to allow only 60-70 per cent syllabus to be covered, as revealed by teachers.

Dean of science faculty Baldev Patel said that this semester, all students will be promoted to the next semester even if they do not pass. "This decision has been taken as CBCS is being implemented for the first time, all students will be allowed to be promoted to the next semester irrespective of the number of subjects he or she has not passed. Students will, however, be required to clear all the semester exams along with the third semester", said Patel.

"The CBCS system needs to be implemented in a clearer fashion", said Dhaval Vaghela, a teacher with MG Science College.