Changes soon in RGUHS examination process: VC

• Electronic despatch of question papers to be introduced
• Committee set up to monitor erring evaluators
• University needs 5,000 more teachers
  

Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) S. Ramananda Shetty has said that RGUHS will now send question papers to colleges by email just minutes before examinations begin and tabulation of results will be done on computers and sent back to the university by email. The university had now introduced this system in postgraduate courses and it was a successful move. “We will soon introduce the system in undergraduate courses and manual entry of marks will stop,” he added.

Dr. Shetty claimed that RGUHS was the only university in the country which had formed a “professional misconduct committee” to monitor erring valuators.

Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, he recalled that in a particular case, one evaluator had given a student 14 marks for an answer, while the question itself was for only 10 marks. The university this year had debarred 17 such evaluators who were not professional. “We also blacklist evaluators and try not to invite them for evaluation work as far as possible,” he added.

Dr. Shetty said the university had also introduced a facility whereby a student could contest his evaluation process, by paying a prescribed fee of Rs. 5,000 per paper. A copy of the answer script would be sent for re-evaluation and if the candidate were to get more marks, the fees paid would be refunded.

Dr. Shetty said that over 650 institutions including those teaching medicine, nursing and alternative therapies would soon come under the purview of university. Of them, 50 per cent were nursing colleges (323). For nursing colleges, recognition from the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and the Karnataka Nursing Council (KNC) was mandatory. “Some colleges do not have INC permission to conduct courses. Students from these colleges will not be eligible for employment in places where recognition is mandatory. The RGUHS has sent such a list to the State Government requesting it not to admit students to these colleges,” he added.

On the relocation of the university to Ramanagara, Dr. Shetty said, “The Government promised to give us 300 acres of land. Now 142 acres has been acquired but farmers have gone to court seeking a stay on the acquisition of the remaining land. Once the land is fully acquired, we will shift to the new campus.”

He said the Central Committee for Indian Medicine wrote to the university last year asking the authorities not to admit students to 28 Ayurveda colleges in the State as they did not have any infrastructure. By then, the admissions were already over. The university wrote to the CCIM stating that the admissions were already over and hence they may be permitted to continue. As many as 1,400 students were admitted to these colleges.

Dr. Shetty said there were 18,000 teaching staff working in colleges, teaching medicine and alternative forms of therapy, but the university needed another 5,000. The number of postgraduate seats would also be increased, he added.

He said there would be no problems as far as fresh admissions to Government Medical Colleges in Hassan, Shimoga, Mandya, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum were concerned. The Medical Council of India would be meeting in Delhi on June 10 and would send renewal of recognition letters to the Karnataka Government. Seats in these colleges were available for the first round of counselling, he added.

Principal of SDM College of Ayurveda Prasanna N. Rao was present.