26,000 IKGPTU students appear for offline exams

Tribune News Service

Kapurthala, January 4

As many as 26,000 students in colleges affiliated to the IK Gujral Punjab Technical University appeared for regular, offline examination that began from Monday for the first time since the pandemic began.

The university adopted a student-friendly and flexible approach, taking consent from all students beforehand.

Nearly 26,000 out of 42,000 students opted for the offline January-2021 examination and appeared today. All Covid-related norms were followed stringently on the campus.

The remaining students were given an option to appear for exams in March 2021 or even later as things become conducive. Further, a wide range of examination centres were offered to students to choose the one which can be nearest to their home. The university has also decided not to charge extra exam fee from those appearing in March 2021.

The varsity conducted the exam on the main campus also, from where a hosteller tested Covid positive last Saturday. He was isolated immediately by the health authorities. The university maintains that it has ensured proper compliance of guidelines of UGC/MHA/state government since its re-opening and students and staff were being tested for Covid-19 from time to time.

Varsity officials said, “All safety measures such as regular sanitisation, ensuring social distancing and wearing of masks etc are being followed. In case of hostels also, university has allotted only one room per student and all applicable SOPs are being strictly enforced to ensure students’ safety. The university is getting all students regularly tested and wherever any case is detected, treatment/immediate isolation is being done with the help of health authorities and parents. A varsity Dean said, “Being technical subjects, online assessment is not possible all across. So the university decided to conduct the re-appear and regular examinations of intermediate classes in physical mode only with all necessary precautions. In fact, even re-appears have already been held in physical mode in December.”

At CT Institute of Engineering, Management and Technology (CTIEMT) and CT Institute of Information and Technology (CTIT), two centres for offline exams were set up today in which 350 students of fifth semester from different colleges appeared under streams like BTech CSE, BBA, MCA, BCA, BSc IT, B Architecture, B Pharmacy, B Tech Civil, BMLS, BHMCT and MBA 3rd semester. Academics CT Group and Controller of Examination Dr. Anupamdeep Sharma said, “We have taken care of all precautionary measures like mandatory masks and social distancing. We have advised students to bring their own pens and sanitisers. Today, the exams were held in two shifts, one at 9:30 am to 12:30 pm and second from 01:30 noon to 4:30pm. We have strictly followed all SOPs issued by UGC for conducting offline examination.”

CT Group Managing Director Manbir Singh said that it was good to see that the normal routine is coming back on track with passage of time and students today were quite happy.