Huge changes in marks post revaluation in the University of Madras has students doubting the capability of the evaluation process itself.
In the April 2019 semester, some students who had performed well were shocked to find their marks were drastically low. They applied for revaluation and found there were huge variations between their original marks and revaluation scores. The results of the November 2019 exams will be released shortly. College principals too are aware of the issue.
“Of the 20 PG students who apply for revaluation, at least 16, 17 will pass,” said the principal of a west Chennai college. The principal of a college in Poonamallee said at least half the students manage to qualify after revaluation.
Some professors raised it at the academic council meeting last February and a principal suggested penalising the erring evaluators. A rule of the university is that only consolidated marks must appear on each page. This is done to rule out bias during revaluation. But teachers say there is no saying if the evalulator reads the answers before marking them.
‘UG students mostly affected’
“Our students belong to the lower economic group. It is mostly UG students who are affected. We called for reimbursing the students who pass during revaluation,” the principal said.
The principals want the varsity to frame norms for evaluators. But they do agree that lack of sufficient teachers for some subjects is the bottleneck.
“The evaluators must be morally conscious. It is not about the number of years a professor has taught a subject but about how responsible they are about the evaluation process,” a senior professor said.
At present, anyone with two years’ teaching experience is called for valuation. But for revaluation, only those with over 25 years’ experience are invited.
Vice-Chancellor P. Duraisamy said, “We do not get sufficient number of examiners and hence are forced to invite teachers with at least two years’ experience. Every semester, about 10 lakh answer scripts are evaluated. The students are provided the photocopy of answer scripts. Students could apply for revaluation after getting a copy of the answer script too. We have also examined the cases where the difference is more than 15-20 marks,” he said.
Where the difference in revaluation is more than 20 marks the examiner would be debarred if any negligence is noticed, he added.
