The All Kerala Private College Teachers Association (AKPCTA) alleged here on Tuesday that the state of affairs at A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University “was in such a mess that it seriously threatens the quality of technical education in the State.”
In a statement here on Tuesday, AKPCTA president A.G. Oleena and general secretary K.L. Vivekanandan called for urgent intervention of the State government to rectify the situation.
The AKPCTA alleged that all academic and administrative decisions of the university were being taken without any formal discussions.
The AKPCTA said the university was being run by a handful of persons by sidelining democratic procedures.
Since the university had no administrative and other staff, a decision was taken last year to outsource all examination-related work to a private company. But that had to be dropped following strong protests from students and teachers.
Exam-related work
Prof. Vivekanandan said spade work to outsource the examination-related work this year was going on behind the scenes. As the first step, the university intends to despatch question papers to colleges through a website under the control of a private company, he said.
He said students and teachers were apprehensive of the security of such a system.
As it is, the website of the university created by the same private firm had been found dysfunctional many a time, Prof. Vivekanandan said.
Valuation camps
The valuation camps have been organised in a haphazard manner. The colleges have to send the answer sheets by speed post to predetermined camps.
This system will enable those at the camps to identify the colleges from which the answer sheets were sent, the statement said. This will mar the traditional secrecy of the valuation process and can even lead to malpractices, Prof. Vivekanandan said. Another problem expected to crop up pertains to revaluation.
The valued answer sheets will be kept in the custody of the respective colleges where the valuation camp was held. These colleges comprise private and self-financing colleges apart from government and aided colleges. The answer sheets remaining in such places without any control of the university can also lead to malpractices during revaluation.
The mark list is also a problem the students would face. They would get only printouts of their mark lists from the website. These mark lists will not have the signature of the competent authority of the university and therefore a big question mark hung over the acceptance of such a mark list by employers, the statement said.
