Jadavpur University has sought the views of all heads of departments on how to complete 100 per cent evaluation in the semester examinations without asking all students to be present at the campus at a time or adopt the online system in view of the lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19, a university official said Thursday.
The university has also sought the views of the faculty of its engineering departments as to whether final semester students can be given offline home assignments as part of the evaluation process, he said.
"Even if the lockdown is lifted we have to consider factors like maintaining physical distancing while seating them in class rooms and that all students cannot be accommodated in a single room at any one point of time. Again many of our students cannot afford advanced smart phones and have poor net connectivity at home due to their remoteness," he said.
It was due to these reasons that the engineering faculty and the university authorities are thinking of alternative ways of evaluation during the lockdown like home assignments and viva over phone.
"We are actively considering if final year students can be given home assignments partly through e-mail and WhatsApp as even if some students may not have smart phones or laptops at home. They can get the study materials from their friends, neighbours, family members or functioning cyber cafes.
"The students can do their assignments on paper and send the picture through his or any close contact's WhatsApp number or mail to the engineering department," he said elaborating on the proposed plan.
With pre-final semester cumulative grade point average of every student taken as the point of reference, the home assignment score will be counted in the final semester tally as per the proposal, he said.
Vice-chancellor Suranjan Das had said recently that the university will come up with a decision that will be of use to each and every student and that there will be no digital divide.
"We have to take into account the fact that many of our students will not be able to avail online class facilities. So JU will always take into account their situation, he had said.
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