Barely four months after they were made to re-appear for an exam due to an alleged paper leak, students of colleges affiliated to Anna University are worried that they may be forced to take a test yet again, after another instance of a leak.
“Today in college, we were told there is a possibility the mathematics exam will be conducted again,” said a second-year student of an engineering college in Ambattur.
For most engineering courses, semester examinations ended on Tuesday. The mathematics exam was held on December 7, and some students say they heard rumours of an alleged leak of the question paper that day itself.
“The paper was very easy as more than 80 per cent of the questions were worked-out examples. There was no surprise at all,” said R. Govindakrishnan, a student of a college in Tambaram.
“We have reports that some students in Tiruchi had access to a paper online that had many of these questions. We have asked the university to inform us at the earliest if any re-exam is planned,” said a director of a group of engineering institutions.
There are over 450 engineering colleges in the State affiliated to Anna University. Officials in private colleges said there was a palpable sense of anxiety about the possibility of a re-test.
In July this year, many students in city colleges obtained access to the electronics circuits question paper a day before the exam. “We were surprised because the paper had exactly the same questions as the one that was circulated on the internet. Since then, we always make it a point to log in to Facebook a day before an exam, even if it is distracting,” said a student.
However, the exam was held once again. “In August, we were asked to re-appear for the exam. And not only was the re-test tougher, the evaluation was stricter too. Since this time it is mathematics, we might have to prepare during the vacation too. This is a subject most of our seniors have arrears in,” said a student.
“We have been informed that the tentative date of the exam is January 10. But there is no official notification from the university,” said R. Rajaram, senior professor at a private college.
Anna University officials have said there has been no evidence of any paper leak as of now. “We suspect the allegations are baseless. A team of professors is looking into the issue. We should be able to announce what is going to happen in two days, if the suspicions are found to be valid,” an official said.
