Students who were appearing for the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) at an engineering college in Bandra on Sunday, alleged mismanagement in conducting the examinations.
According to the information brochure released on the NATA web portal, the first exam (maths and general aptitude) was to start at 10 a.m. while the second (drawing) was scheduled to take place at 11.15 a.m. Instead, some students could write the examinations much beyond these timings.
Students and their parents said a server error caused delays in the registration and verification procedure at the centre, further delaying the entire examination schedule. “There were only two officials for so many of us. One of them was very furious and kept back answering to anxious parents and aspirants. They made us wait for a long time, as their servers were crashing,” said Nimisha Kohle (17) who appeared for her examination after a delay of 15 minutes.
Students also said some of them could take a glance at questions from the others before they could attempt their exam. “My friend started her exam before I could. I got to know about the two questions asked for our drawing exams, as they were displayed on my friend’s computer. This was very unfair and this would not have happened had the exams been in time,” another student said.
Parents alleged that updates and information pertaining to the delays were not given to them by the representatives and that the arrangements at the centre were very poor. “Some students were travelling from outside the city. Both parents and students were anxious due to the delay. Besides, inside the centre, there was not enough space for them to keep their material,” a parent said.
