Date:20/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/20/stories/2005122020630300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Varsity postpones re-opening of colleges to January 2

Staff Reporter

Acute shortage of evaluators, vacation extended by two weeks

Only 60 per cent attendance recorded in evaluation centres
Autonomous colleges not sending teachers
Onus placed on college principals

Colleges urged to send internal assessment marks early

BANGALORE: An acute shortage of evaluators has forced the Bangalore University to postpone the reopening of affiliated degree colleges to January 2. The colleges were earlier scheduled to start on December 15. The extended vacation will be used to speed up evaluation and declaration of examination results.

Only 50 to 60 per cent attendance was recorded in the evaluation centres.

This will upset the evaluation schedule fixed for four to six weeks, university's Registrar (Evaluation) T.A. Parthasarathy told presspersons today. Evaluation of language and Science papers is the most affected. With autonomous colleges not sending teachers for evaluation, matters became worse.

Mr. Parthasarathy wanted the college principals to ensure that their teachers participate in the evaluation process without further delay.

"Declaration of results within the time schedule entirely depends on this aspect. Principals have a crucial role to play," he added.

Observing that some of the colleges had already started classes in spite of the university's postponement orders, Mr. Parthasarathy said the matter will be placed before the University Syndicate for action. "Colleges which do not send their teachers for evaluation will have to be listed and reported to the Vice-Chancellor," he said.

He urged all college principals to send the Internal Assessment marks of undergraduate and postgraduate courses under the Semester Schemes, and other data in CD format to the university immediately. "Without these details, the results cannot be published. So far, out of 481 colleges, only 130 have submitted their data," he said.

Evaluation reforms

Mr. Parthasarathy said the university has implemented several reforms to improve the process of evaluation and declaration of results.

The evaluation centres were decentralised and the university's jurisdiction was divided into eight to 10 zones for examination purposes. Deployment of Home Guards at the evaluation centres, appointment of evaluation coordinators, data (Marks) capturing on the same day of evaluation and appointment of two "Internal audit committees" to bring in more transparency in the process were all part of the reforms, he said.

Besides, modalities were being worked out to streamline the procedure of payment of allowances to evaluators.