Glitches mar undergradute environment exam

Lovleen Bains

Sahnewal, August 21

Students appearing for Environment and Road Safety Education and Violence against Women and Children and Drug Abuse paper were caught in a fix when they could not attempt and submit their paper even in the third chance given by the Panjab University this evening.

The examination was earlier scheduled to be held in July but was postponed and the fresh date announced was August 20. Students of BA semester II were supposed to attempt the examination by opening the given site and joining the provided link between 4 pm to 5.30 pm. A number of students from different colleges failed to join the link altogether or submit their paper.

As nodal officers of different colleges brought these multiple problems to the notice of the university officials, they allowed the students to attempt another paper, which was conducted for BCom semester II, IV and VI students from 10 am to 11.30 am today. However, the problems multiplied all the more as more classes were added in the session.

In the evening session, BBA and BCA classes were supposed to attempt the paper. Many students who had earlier failed to submit the paper were asked to join and attempt the exam. But even in the third chance, the problems refused to subside.

“We had to attempt 100 questions. I attempted the 40 questions given on the first page but failed to proceed further as the link was taking me to the first page again and again. Hence, I failed to submit the paper. I faced the same problem this morning,” a candidate shared.

“I was not able to submit the paper as again and again I was being asked if I am a robot and the whole process began again,” said another.

“I attempted the questions but in the received email, it shows that some questions were left unattempted,” was the view of another student.

A nodal officer of a local college said conducting the environment exam seemed to have become a Herculean task for the university. “Due to unusual traffic, the Google form closed automatically. Students faced multiple problems on account of this. Last year too, the university had to cancel the exam as servers failed to respond and panic prevailed among the examinees and supervisors. But it had acted wise by giving the option of online or offline submission on a fresh date announced. Majority of the students had then submitted a hard copy to their respective institutions but this time, the sole option of online submission has again created a furore. Students, teachers and the nodal officers were literally fed up with the process of joining, attempting and submitting.”

The university officials, however, responded to the queries that the candidates were facing. “No section jumping problem, robot CAPTCHA problem etc would have been experienced had the students kept their cool and submitted just once,” a university official said.

For the convenience of the candidates, the link was active till 5.15 pm today and students were asked to submit their responses even till 8 pm, the official added.

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