‘I am for new admissions on the basis of Class XII result, not JEE’

ACADEMICS IN PANDEMIC

Ever since the educational institutes across the country got locked down due to the pandemic on March 20, academics have taken a big hit. Even though online classes have not been much of a problem, the bigger issues confronting the institutes have been to decide on procedures related to admission, conduct of examination and methodology for assessment. Deepkamal Kaur, in an interview with Vice-Chancellor of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, Dr Ajay Sharma, asks him how he has been dealing with all such issues. Excerpts:

You were a member of the committee, which is looking into admission criteria for first year B.Tech classes? What is the final decision on the matter?

As a committee member, I, along with Director, Technical Education and a few engineering college principals, have recommended that the admissions be held on the basis of Class XII results, rather than JEE. But a final call on the matter is yet to be taken by the Technical Education Minister. We are expecting a notification on the admission procedure for this year in a few days.

We have been conducting virtual placements for our students. We are now inviting participation in a state-level Pharma Job Fest, which is going to be held online on August 8. In fact, 75 per cent of the students on the main university campus and an average of 50 per cent students of our affiliated colleges have been placed. —Dr Ajay Sharma, Vice-Chancellor of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala

Amid Centre-state disagreement on conduct of examination for exit year students of all UG and PG courses, the students remain in a dilemma. What do you think will be the likely decision on the matter?

Even before the state government was to announce that there will be no examination, we were ready with our online examination plan. In fact, we are ready for offline plan or open book online test, too. But seeing the situation, I, along with other Vice-Chancellors of state-run universities, have written to the UGC Chairman to allow us to promote students without examination. Now, it is for the governments to arrive at unanimity. We will follow whatever directions come to us.

However, this decision affects only 50 per cent of our students, as those who went for industrial training in the eighth semester have already appeared for online viva and their assessment has been done. The other half of our students who had training in the seventh semester and course work in the eighth semester have got stuck up.

Is the delay in result affecting the placement of your students?

No, I don’t think so. We have been conducting virtual placements for our students. We are now inviting participation in a state-level Pharma Job Fest, which is going to be held online on August 8. In fact, 75 per cent of the students on the main university campus and an average of 50 per cent students of our affiliated colleges have been placed. Some colleges, including DAVIET, Jalandhar, and Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, have already had more than 90 per cent placements.

When will the result of intermediate classes be declared? When are their classes going to start?

With regard the result of the intermediate classes, we have held some meetings to fix the criteria, which should not be challengeable. We have decided to follow the UGC guidelines, in which 50 per cent weightage will be given to previous semester examination. More than 60 per cent of their practical examination had been taken and viva, too, has been taken online.

For the third, fifth and seventh semesters, we are planning to start the online classes from August 3 as our faculty is sitting idle and even students have nothing to do. Also, we do not want to waste more time.

Any plans to digitise the teaching system?

We are converting our classrooms into studios for relay of lectures. We have connected all our constituent campuses including main campus at Kapurthala and those at Hoshiarpur, Amritsar and Mohali through fibre. We have installed MPLS technology with bandwidth facilities at the main campus. We will be able to share all our resources including library and research.

Besides, we will have a common timetable in all these campuses and a subject teacher from one campus will be taking classes for students at all constituent campuses. We have already computerised our office through NIC wherein physical movement of files has completely stopped. All files are traceable. No file can get misplaced or stuck with any officer.