With examinations for undergraduate courses commencing on Thursday, students from a few arts and science colleges affiliated to Madurai Kamaraj University were taken by surprise on Wednesday when they received blank hall tickets from the newly introduced online system.
Nearly 600 first year students from at least one of the colleges were allowed to sit for the examination without hall tickets on Thursday while the university claimed that the issue was resolved for other colleges.
While the MKU was until now issuing printed copies of hall tickets to its non-autonomous affiliated colleges for further distribution to students, it introduced an online system this year to enable students to download their hall tickets from the university’s website by entering their registration numbers.
Though the first year examinations were scheduled from Thursday and the second year exams from Friday, the hall tickets, however, were uploaded only on Wednesday afternoon, resulting in MKU’s website witnessing a spike in traffic.
According to a faculty member from MKU’s Constituent College in Tirumangalam, almost all first year students and students from departments like Commerce and Tamil in remaining years received blank hall tickets.
“When we entered our registration numbers, we just received a blank hall ticket with no photograph or other details. However, our friends from a neighbouring college in Tirumangalam were able to download theirs successfully,” said a second year Tamil Literature student from the college. He said the issue was not resolved until Thursday evening.
Around 600 first year students in the college sat for the examination on Thursday without hall tickets, an official said. “We hope the issue will be resolved at least by Friday,” he added.
Denying knowledge of the issue faced at MKU’s Constituent College in Tirumangalam, O. Ravi, Controller of Examinations, said similar issues reported elsewhere were resolved. “Owing to heavy traffic, some students received blank hall tickets. But the issue got automatically resolved soon after,” he said, adding the issue in Tirumangalam college would be enquired.
On why the hall tickets were released at the eleventh hour, he said many colleges submitted the details of students only on Monday.
It can be noted that at least 10 affiliated colleges of the MKU, including the constituent college in Tirumangalam, had admitted more students than the sanctioned strength. Following an enquiry, the Convenor’s Committee decided only earlier this week to allow the excess students to appear for examinations considering their future.
