IT Chandigarh

Inter-school declamation held

An inter-school declamation contest was organised at the Shivalik Public School Phase IV here yesterday in collaboration with the Punjab Health Department. Students spoke on female foeticide and sex education for adolescents. Arshdeep Kaur, Jashanpreet Kaur and Parvinder Singh won prizes.

PSEB Academic Council nominations

Head of the Department of Law and principals of a school and college were nominated members of the Academic Council of the Punjab School Education Board for one year.

According to a notification of the Department of Education, Mr Subash Sharma, Head of the Department of Law, Guru Nanak Dev University, Regional Campus, Basti Nau, Jalandhar, Mr Mangat Ram Mehta, Principal, B.C.M. School, focal point, Ludhiana, and Mr S.K. Uppal, Principal, D.M. College, Moga, have been nominated members of the council by the Governor of Punjab.

MCA students protest

Students of Master of Computer Applications course of the Department of Computer Science and Applications, Panjab University, protested today against the merging of the Master of Computer Applications placement cell with that of the M.Sc. Computer Sc.

They submitted a representation to the Dean, University Instructions in this regard. Terming the step unfair Amandeep Singh, student leader (PUSU), said Master of computer applications was tougher three-year course compared to newly introduced 2 year M.Sc., computer science and demanded his intervention into the matter. Moreover, course fee of MCA was higher than that of M.Sc., computer science, he said.

Law students stay away from classes

The students of Law Department, Panjab University, today protested against decisions of the faculty of law not to give admission to two students of Law Department in the third semester. Students did not attend morning and evening classes.

Sumit Malhotra and Wasim Sayeed of Law Department, Panjab University were admitted in NRI quota. They fell short of lectures. They claimed that their admission was done at a late stage. Since the decision of the Syndicate and Senate had been taken that the lectures should be counted from the date of admission, hence they are not falling any short of lecture. They are eligible to get admission in the third semester.

A spokesman of the Department of Law clarified that their claim was false and they were not eligible.

Students have resolved to continue the agitation.

Hardeep Singh Harry, NSUI, Amandeep Singh PUSU, Vikas Rathi, General Secretary, Panjab University Students Council said that they would take up the issue with university authorities.

PSEB chief for three sets of question papers

The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Chairman, Prof Harbans Singh Sidhu, plans to bring about a change in the setting of question papers from the next academic session and favours a comprehensive and continuous evaluation of a student’s abilities.

The board chief called for transparency in the examination system and laid stress on reevaluation of answersheets and not merely the recounting of marks as was being done by the PSEB.

Prof Sidhu, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the Council of Boards of Secondary Education in India (COBSE) and had attended its meeting in Kerala recently, said at present five sets of question papers were given at random to examinees. It was not easy to maintain the level of difficulty in all five sets of question papers.

There was a consensus among educationists that sets of question papers should be more than one but less than five.

“I feel that three should be good enough.” However, the “distribution of topics” should be clearly reflected in the question papers.

Prof Sidhu suggested the creation of a question bank by involving senior teachers of the subjects concerned. Such question papers could be passed on to paper setter who could treat these as a “benchmark” while carrying out the exercise of drawing up his list of questions.

The chairman said there was often an unscientific element involved during the marking of answersheets. “Biases were up to 15 per cent” which adversely affected the division secured by the examinee. He felt that a student’s worth should not be evaluated only on the basis of final examination which should get a weightage of 30 per cent.

The rest of the assessment of the student should be on the basis of examinations conducted during the academic year. In his opinion, five such examinations could be conducted.

Prof Sidhu said the assessment of examination performance on the basis of first, second and third divisions was not good enough. There was a consensus among the educationists that there should be a seven scale system.

The credibility of certification was of vital importance and it had to be seen whether universities accepted such certification.