The denial of seats for MCA course to 18 graduates from Thiruvalluvar University during counselling at the Anna University on Monday since they were unable to produce the sixth semester original marksheets has sent jitters to the nearly 35,000 students, who had just completed their degree courses and waiting for the final results and marksheets.
The university has 96 affiliated colleges, spread over the districts of Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram and Cuddalore with 1,50,000 students on the rolls. Those who have completed their undergraduate courses this year are wringing their hands in despair as they are neither able to apply for PG courses nor go for a work. Some of the students who had cleared the entrance examinations are panicky. With the B.Ed counselling starting in the next few days, many students are wondering what will happen to them as all other universities in the State have announced the final semester marks in the second week of June itself.
One of the students who lost an MCA seat in the Anna University said, “We have missed such a golden opportunity to study at the prestigious Anna University and we may be rejected in the general counselling too. The first batch of the counselling for MCA is scheduled to start on July 25. This will be the situation for the students who had opted for MBA also.” Squarely blaming the university for the faux pas, an irate parent said, “We are planning to file a petition against this irresponsible act.”
When inquired about the delay in results, academic council member of the university, S Kumar, said, “A database consisting of the marks of the students is sent to Manipal, where the certificates are printed. The files are correct when we sent it from here, but, when we received the mark certificates, there were mistakes. Marks were found to be interchanged between subjects and the score of some students was printed as zero in Continuous Internal Assessment (CIA) and CIA marks were typed under End Semester Exam (ESE). The only solution for this problem was to install a new original software and it would cost about Rs 18 lakh, he said.
However, Vice-Chancellor Jothimurugan said:
“Marks for the third year students will be published on July 25. Students who were rejected in the Anna University counseling can approach the registrar of the Thiruvalluvar University. Steps are being taken to directly send the marksheets of these students to the registrar of the Anna University and the members in-charge of the TANCET counseling, to consider it for the general counseling.”
But, students who have passed their first and second year have also found bloomers in their marksheets. The situation is worse for the students of 2008, who were the first to write the exams under the new Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) that the university has introduced. Some of the students in the batch still have not received their first semester marksheet. Problems started with the onset of this programme, which required special software to calculate the CIA and ESE marks. The software is said to be defective. Of the 96 colleges affiliated to the university, 11 are government colleges, eight are aided, six autonomous and the rest are self-financing institutions.