VIVEK CHHETRI; Calcutta Telegraph; Thursday , September 23 , 2010;
Darjeeling, Sept. 22: The colleges in the Darjeeling hills have accused North Bengal university of “gross negligence” in evaluating the answer scripts of the undergraduate exams after many students were marked absent or had their results withheld.
While there is no regular pattern, as some institutions have also excelled in some streams, college authorities said those instances were rare. In most cases, the results have been disastrous
Dipak Ray, principal of Darjeeling Government College, said: “I have strong reservations about the assessment process of the university. There has been gross negligence as many candidates who had appeared for the examinations have either been marked as absent or their results withheld.” Ray said of the 1,600 candidates who appeared for Part I and Part II examinations from his college, almost 70 per cent were unsuccessful, which includes students with “back papers”, and those whose results have not come. Honours students who have failed in one pass subject paper are known to have “backs” and can re-appear for it the next year. During the period, they can be promoted to the next class.
“There are gross discrepancies. For example, a student has got 45 per cent in political science and only 4 in English. The results are most unexpected if we look at the performance of the last 10 years,” said L.P. Gupta, the principal of Sonada Degree College.
Many colleges in the hills have decided to convene emergency meetings of the teachers’ council to discuss the results. Rajendra Dhakal, principal of Kalimpong College, said: “We are definitely not satisfied with the results. We will call a meeting of the teachers’ council to discuss the reason (for such bad performance).”
St Joseph’s College (North Point), which is known for its consistent good results across all streams, has faltered this time with the most miserable performance being in BSc and BCom.
The only two colleges in the hills satisfied with the results are Southfield College and Ghoom-Jorebunglow Degree College.
“Of the 714 students, 638 have cleared the examinations. Around 40 did not sit for their papers because of various reasons. In general we have fared well,” said Milan Tamang, officer-in-charge of the Ghoom college.
K. Ojha, principal of Southfield College, also termed the results “as expected’.” Our pass percentage in Part 1 honours is 90, while that in Part II is 96.4 per cent. We have attained a pass percentage of 72 percent in Part I general and 93 percent in Part II general courses,” said Ojha.
Sushanta Das, the controller of examinations, NBU, said dissatisfied candidates could go in for re-assessment. “The re-assessment will be done by another set of teachers. This is an age of the RTI and everything is transparent,” said Das.
Asked about the allegation of negligence in marking, Das said: “For Darjeeling Government College I can say that it had registered students in general course but they sat for the honours examinations. The computers could not take their marks, as their registration numbers did not match. This is why the university withheld the results.”
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