First sem results make engg colleges introspect

Chennai: The first semester results of affiliated engineering colleges of Anna University have thrown up several questions including quality of students, faculty members and infrastructure in these colleges and, hence, forced many colleges into introspection.

On performance wise, the gap between the students’ results from Anna University and affiliated engineering colleges have further widened with former maintaining the results around 59% in the first semester exams. The affiliated colleges registered only 31% results in the first semester exams of which the results were declared on Monday.

A principal from the engineering college near Chennai said that the results are down by at least 15% to 20% this year.

“Following the strict valuation norms enforced by Anna University, the results are down in almost all the engineering colleges in the state. Even the top engineering colleges are just having results around 80% to 85% this year,” he said.

The colleges are worried that it could have an adverse impact on their admissions in next academic year. Usually, the valuation of answer scripts would be very liberal and the lack of quality would be marked by the liberal valuation. But, Anna University has debarred over 1,100 faculty members from valuation following the marks variation in over 50,000 answer scripts of students who appeared for  April/May 2017 exams.

It had the huge impact on the faculty members. “It seems the examiners have strictly followed the answer keys and scheme of valuation to the book. Our students who marginally missed out pass marks are planning to apply for revaluation,” another principal added.

He also pointed out that the huge number of students failed in engineering physics (47.3%) this year. “The question paper was relatively easy. But, the number of students who got failed in the subject was equal to the tough engineering maths paper,” he said.

Anna University former vice-chancellor E. Bala gurusamy attributed the poor performance in the exams to the poor quality of students and faculty members. “I will not be surprised if many colleges have achieved results below 5% in the exam. The students who are just clearing the plus 2 exams are being admitted to engineering courses. It requires a certain level of intelligence on the part of students to study engineering. You cannot admit all the students without testing them and expect good results,” he argued.

He also urged the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to raise the qualification norms for engineering admission to minimum 50% of marks. “We should bring back entrance exam to get better students input in the engineering colleges. Those who cannot qualify can study in polytechnic colleges,” he suggested.

He further criticised the quality of school education in the state saying even the students who got 200 out of 200 cannot clear the engineering maths subject.

“The full marks do not represent the real knowledge of the students,” he said.
G.V.Uma, controller of examinations, Anna University accepted that the results were down compared to last year. She said the results were slightly improved after the revaluation and the final result will be known after revaluation.
A senior official said the AICTE to increase the minimum qualification of marks to 60%. “Engineer ing demands logical thinking skills. Students should have minimum qualified to study the engineering courses,” he said.