Callous evaluators play with student’s future

Shoddy evaluation and revaluation work by Bangalore University's evaluators has almost destroyed a fifth semester Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA) student's dreams.

Surya N Mylar, a student of Surana College (affiliated to Bangalore University), was selected for enrollment to the four-semester (two-year) computer applications course of Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE). Surya was informed from WASE on July 12, 2012. This course allows students to subsequently pursue an eight-semester (four-year) off-campus collaborative MS program with Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani (Rajasthan).

The future seemed bright for Surya. But BU's evaluators have apparently played truant. They failed him in Computer Architecture subject for which he had appeared in October 2011, awarding him just 18 marks while the passing is 32. The results were out in November 2011.

A shocked Surya applied for re-valuation and the photocopy of the answer sheet of the subject, a copy of which is with DNA.
The normal procedure is that the photocopy is sent to the student first. But in Surya's case, the revaluation results came first stating

"No changes", which meant that he would get 18 marks. The photocopy of the answer sheet did not come. After more than six months of running from pillar to post to get the marks corrected, as he believed he had passed the subject, Surya was able to meet Syed Jamal, the then special officer of examinations, BU, in July 2012.

When Jamal finally gave Surya the photocopy, Surya was surprised to see that he had actually passed, as he had been granted 32 marks.

On pointing that out, Jamal reportedly told Surya that the varsity would provide him with the revised marks. "But after a few days, when I returned to the university to collect my provisional mark sheet, I saw that they had given me 24 and not 32 marks. Now, I don't know whom to believe," said Surya, who has Oct 15 as the last date to join WASE.

Shockingly, many of the questions for which Surya had written answers were marked "unattempted" by the evaluator, indicating that the perpetrator had shortchanged the student's efforts.

DNA handed over the photocopy of the answer script to a faculty member of Computer Architecture subject at RBANMS College, who was also an evaluator for the same subject for the same examination that Surya had appeared for. Interestingly, this evaluator said, "He is eligible to be passed; being a subject expert, I am sure about that. One should be careful while evaluating the paper and be just to the students.”

As fate would have it, Jamal subsequently resigned from his post on facing a string of allegations of malpractice in the varsity.
Now, with time running out, Surya is at his wits' end over salvaging the opportunity ahead of him.