Telangana CM's online-exam plan expensive and difficult', say experts

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s suggestion to hold all university, boards and entrance exams online — like the GMAT, GRE and JEE — to stop leaks of question papers is not implementable in the near future, experts have said.

This was conveyed by education officials after assessing the possibility of holding online-only exams in the next couple of years. They said it could be done in five years, if the government took up an extensive awareness campaign on the benefits of online exams.

Officials added that universities will need good computer infrastructure for students to practice online exams. Authorities told the government that most students from rural backgrounds were still not familiar with computers and online exams could create problems for them.

They said the CBSE —  which mainly caters to urban students — was still struggling to convince students to opt for online JEE for the past five years —  most students still opt for the pen-paper format.

“When CBSE removed offline centres in Hyderabad for JEE, parents even took kids to towns like Warangal and Khammam to make them appear for the offline exam. Despite added expenses, they favoured the offline exam,” said Mr P.

Madhusudhan Reddy, of the TS Junior Lecturers Association. They said most schools and colleges did not have the infrastructure to cater to the needs of lakhs of students who take the exams.

“We have suggested that online-only exams could be taken up in phases. We should try to begin with holding an online Eamcet, Icet and Edcet. We can think of holding online exams in universities,” an official of the higher education department said.

Conducting board exams like SSC and Intermediate is impractical at this point as over 7 lakh apply for each exam every year. Providing computers to such a vast number of students at one go requires a huge funds,” he said.

Teachers’ unions too feel that online exam for lakhs of students is not possible given the meagre fund allocations by the government to conduct exams.

“We are not in a position to provide basic facilities like benches and desks to students writing exams. There are hundreds of schools where students sit on the floor and write exams. There is no power in several government schools. This is the reality,” said teacher union leader P. Ravinder.