Students of engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University can now get a copy of their answer sheets within a month of the announcement of results.
The university, which announced results of its odd semesters on Tuesday, has modified its existing revaluation system and has asked all affiliated colleges to abide by the new rules, officials said.
From now on, every student who wishes to apply for revaluation will also have to get the written consent of a subject expert in the college.
Students and academics have expressed their support for the new system, terming it student-friendly. “Other universities already follow the rule of handing over photocopies of answer sheets to students. It helps them understand their mistakes and ask for a re-evaluation only if needed,” said S. Selvaraghavan, an associate professor of engineering design at the university.
Under the new system, students can get photocopies of their answer sheets for a fee of Rs. 300. Until now, a student was asked to pay Rs. 400 for revaluation and then Rs. 700 to get a photocopy of the answer sheet. She had to pay Rs. 3,000 more if she wanted a review of the paper.
The university has also promised to finish the entire revaluation procedure within a month. “More than the expenditure, it was the waiting time for these procedures at the university that made it worse. Now, as everything will get over in a month, we can plan the semester properly, even if we get arrears,” said Dhivya Santhosh, a second-year civil engineering student here.
The university, with over 550 engineering institutions affiliated to it, has made these changes to ease the process of correction and restrict the number of papers that land up for re-evaluation, a senior official said.
“Often, parents insist on sending in their children’s papers for revaluation even though the students know they have not performed well,” said the official. He added that students can apply for a review by experts if they are not satisfied with the revaluation result.
“Of late the university has been criticised for allegedly making money through re-evaluation schemes. These changes are also to clean up the system,” he added.