54 Calicut University Examinations in 70s

Regional Engineering College Calicut was affiliated to the Calicut University till 2002 when  REC was  converted to National Institute of Technology with full academic autonomy to conduct examinations and award degrees like I.I.Ts. Under Calicut University, a teacher with an experience of 3 years could be appointed as an examiner for the valuation of theory papers or for the conduct of practical examiners. Many of us considered the examination work as part of our duty and would take up this work once appointed as examiner. Even though there was some remuneration for conducting the examinations, very often the payment will be delayed by more than 2 or more years and many teachers refused to take up this work. However, I was one among those who   volunteered to   accept the examination work and if necessary to travel to Palakkad or Thrissur for conducting practical examinations. There were a few staff members who never accepted the examinership in other centres.   

University examination work can be categorized into five. First and the simplest, being Invigilators  for theory examinations  conducted  in the  college, second as Assistant to examiners  for the practical  examinations conducted , third as Internal Examiners   for the  practical  exanimations at REC and four, as External Examiners for the  conduct of practical examinations at other centres like Govt College of Engg, Thrissur or N.S.S.College  of Engg, Palakkad. The fifth category was  to value  the answer scripts of the theory papers  as  Assistant  Examiner or Chief Examiner and submit the marks list to the  Chairman of Examinations of the particular stream of Engg.

The simplest among these was the duty as Invigilators for theory examinations. The duty involves collecting the blank answer papers and printed question papers from the office of the Chief Superintendent (Principal), conduct the examinations making sure that nobody copies or indulge in any malpractices, collect the answer papers at the end of the exam, submit the written answer papers and balance blank answer papers and additional sheets with their accounts etc. Usually examinations in the forenoon sessions start at 930AM and end at 1230PM. We have to report to the Chief Superintendent at 9AM and leave only after counting the answer sheets on return after 1230PM. Most of the theory examinations were held in the drawing halls in the Main Building and depending on the size of the hall and number of students, there could be 3 or 4 invigilators.  It was rumoured that copying was regularly done by many students in REC and some of us were good at catching students trying to copy from slips brought by them. We have also observed that  at that time, many students  from states from the North were  experts in this as it was prevalent  even at school level in some of these states. The slips that they bring into the examination hall used to be hardly 2-3 cms wide but running to several meters  rolled  together. They used to hide these even in their secret parts of the body. Dr.E.Vijayan Nair (Mech Department, not  living now) and myself were  reasonably good  in catching these  fellows and  if we are  posted as invigilators, the students  were really scared as we used to report at least one case  every time we were put on duty.  If we find that someone has brought a slip into the hall and we catch it, we used to get the candidates signature on the slip and the answer book, collect both of them and issue another answer paper to answer the questions further. Chief superintendent will be informed and after a preliminary report will be made, Chief superintendent   is required to forward the reports with the incriminating slips to the Controller  of Examinations with  his remarks. Some invigilators, even if they recover slips from the students they will only spoil it and send the students out. If this is  done towards  the end of the examination, the student must have  already copied the  contents of the slip and he will be happy to get away. There   is no use sending them out. Such students in all probability will try this again.  Once the malpractice is reported to the Controller, he will order an enquiry. The invigilators and the student will have to appear   before the enquiry commission. Normally the enquiry will take 2 or 3 years. The results of examinations that the student write during this period will be withheld. If the    malpractice is proved beyond doubt, the student will be barred from taking examinations for 2 or 3 years. Some Chief Superintendents themselves may say “This is all nuisance”, but such an attitude will not be helpful for eradicating the malpractices. Invigilator’s work had this type of occupational hazards, but the advantage  was that  the  remuneration for invigilation will  be distributed without much delay after the examination.

Second type of work is to assist the internal and external examiners in the conduct of the practical examinations. Normally there will be three sessions of three-hour duration every day, sometimes with an overlap of an hour between successive batches. An Assistant to Examiner will be   working only one session per day. In electrical laboratories, the assistant is to check the connection diagram and see whether it is right or wrong, and help the students in taking readings if necessary.  Here again, there will be villains who will try to copy. They will   draw the circuit diagram for the experiments on slips  or bring the  reading of the experiments from the slips. They may not know how to conduct the experiments and somehow do some calculation with the copied readings and submit the answer script. In one instance, a student in my session had to do an experiment on a transformer  that was  kept below  the  laboratory table. This boy did not even connect the transformer to the power supply and came up with the readings after an hour or so. I had my own doubts as he did not ask me to check the connection. When I alerted the examiner on this, he asked him to show how he got the meter readings which obviously he could not do.  These boys   must not have done any experiment during the regular practical class. As a member of a batch of 4 or 5 students, he must have been a passenger without any involvement in the examination and finds it difficult to do even simple experiments during the examination.

For each practical examination, an examiner from the college (Internal) and another from outside the college (External) have to be present. Normally, the internal examiner will know all the students in the class and will be helping the external in the conduct of examiners. An oral examination is to be conducted for each student for 10-15 minutes and usually the external examiner will be asking most of the questions. If a particular students is not able to answer any of the questions, the internal examiner may help him by asking a few easier questions so that he gets back his composure and can answer the questions from the external examiner. At the end of the day, the internal examiner and external examiner together values the answer scripts and finalize the marks. The day’s work will be completed only with this. Both the examiners are equally responsible for the valuation and nobody is superior or inferior. If there is a difference of opinion, final decision will be taken by the external examiner or the senior among the two. If the external examiner is very thrifty in giving marks, the internal examiner resulting in too many students failing, internal examiner can interfere to save his students. When  I was  an examiner, internal or examiner, I used  to divide  the total 100 marks into those for connection diagram ( 20), procedure(25), results(25), graphs(10) and  viva(20) so that the  students will be able to get a pass mark even if he or she has  performed  badly in the viva voce. Naturally, only those who do well in all including viva will be able to get high marks. My experience as  external  examiner  in the two engineering colleges  will follow  later.