Call me a sore loser or an activist, i am up sleeves to vent my pent up frustration on the goings of so called Autonomous colleges in TamilNadu.
Much things happen in the months September (setting question papers for November end semester exams) and January, February, March (setting question papers for April end semester exams and being part of practical exams).
It was much better when we had non autonomous colleges. Everything was centralized (to maximum extent, leave some hiccups now and then)and the choice of examiner or question paper setting was strictly according to seniority and rotation basis. I mean, the professor would get a chance only once in a year to a college to conduct practical exams and at times the professor would not get a chance for next couple of years or so. Also, as there were little number of autonomous colleges, the need to churn out question papers was less.
Now comes the scene of granting academic autonomy to colleges by the parent universities. Every college has a controller of examinations and every college frames syllabi of its own choice to cater to the growing need of the real world.
There comes the glitch, the administration part of the academic autonomy!! Lobbying, sounds gross huh, yeah, this is what is happening! It is kinda question paper mafia!! I wonder how many question papers a person can set a semester!With the kinda contacts ppl have, everyone sets question papers for so many colleges, so many papers, and so many branches(even if the subjects sound so remote with respect to their degree, some how contrive the question papers). Eventually, if we are not thorough with the subject, we do not cherish setting the question paper and end up in a non creative, dumb stuff!!!
Subsequently, those who set the question paper for end semester exams have to value the answer scripts as external examiner. Though, you set question papers at random hours, many college have the valuation period more or less at the same time. So, if the person happens to go to two (or more at times!!!) colleges on the same day for correction, i leave it your guess, the gravity of correcting 100 or more university exam papers on the same day!!! Government rules say that no person can claim DA(dearness allowance) more than once in a day!! (coz, the remuneration for correcting papers include DA! Who cares, damn!!!
The scene on the practical exam side is,all the more worse! i think there is dearth of professors around!! :P, same person hops around, and exhausts his/her full quota of OnDuty stipulated by Govt in conducting practical exams in the colleges in and around city!Result is, students never get to see strict examiner (forgot to mention, if u r strict, and stick to rules you will not be called next time as examiner! :) )and this dilutes the system further and there comes a vicious cycle!!! Well, unless you are a kinda person to capitalize your resources (read as contacts!!) or go get person, i swear, you would never become an external examiner in any college!!!Also, everyone will maintain the appointment of external examiner in a college as a military secret, phew!!To top it all, if the person does have another appointment, then he/she will choose his/her friend in their place!! No appointment orders required, just call up the friend on the other end and post this friend there!!!
Now, i feel that, having known what is going around in autonomous colleges, the university cannot keep mum and wash its hand saying that it had granted autonomy. If the grant is been mal-utilized or ill - utilized, then, the university should step in and lay out some rules so that the "academic fiefdom" is been set right!!!!
