HEI students throng browsing centres for semester exams

The online semester exams for the students studying in Engineering, Arts, and Science colleges in Tamil Nadu began on a bright note on Tuesday. Most of the colleges which opened on Tuesday did not conduct physical classes for all the students as was in the case of schools.

The Higher Education Department had already announced that the pending semester exams, which should have been held in January will be conducted from February 1 to 20. Accordingly, all the state-run universities and colleges besides self-financing institutions across the state have made elaborate arrangements including uploading the question papers and monitoring the student’s participation for the semester exams from Tuesday morning.

Students, who do not have access to proper internet connections, thronged the browsing centres to download the question papers.

A senior official from the Higher Education Department told DT Next that most of the students, who were given one hour to download the question papers, completed on time. “The professors also helped the students when they encountered issues in downloading the question papers,” he said.

The official reiterated that, unlike last year, students will not be penalised for the delay in downloading the question papers or late in sending the answer scripts to the institution.

“Therefore, there was no question of how many students had internet issues,” he pointed out. However, the official said the exact number of the students who have faced issues in downloading question papers or non-availability of internet connection will be sought from the institutions shortly.

The senior official also said that all the colleges were instructed to complete the exams on or before February 20 so that physical classes can begin.