Delhi University to Start SMS Alert Service for Colleges

A great confusion prevailed among Delhi University students last week when the last minute changes in duration and marks of 'Reading Gandhi' paper had to be introduced. The information reached Ramjas College quite late when many students had already left. To avoid such incidents in future, the varsity has decided to start an SMS alert service to facilitate all colleges so that no information goes un-informed.

The teaching staff has blamed the incautious functioning of the exam branch and the lack of time due to the introduction of the semester system for this panic. However, controller of examinations, DS Jaggi, said that many times colleges did not answer their phone. Even the same thing happened when they called up to convey the information regarding the last time changes. He further added that getting no response from the college authority, they immediately rushed a messenger to make sure that the change in time and duration was conveyed in time.
The varsity has now decided that besides sending a rider to personally convey any updates, the examination branch will also send bulk messages for instant rectification of mistakes in the question paper, if any.

A Performa has been sent to all the colleges on Friday asking for the mobile numbers of the principals and also of two other officials, preferably the exam superintendent and a non-teaching staff and this is how no information will go un-informed. DS Jaggi has also asked the college authorities to provide their landlines, mobiles as well as fax numbers.

He said that the colleges are yet to provide them with all the required information. As soon as they receive data from all the colleges conducting undergraduate semester exam, they are going to serve the service. They hope that the colleges will reply soon so that they can use this service during the ongoing exam itself.

According to sources in the exam branch, last minute changes in the question papers are unavoidable though they had got just a fortnight to prepare for the exams this time. “We do not read the content of the question paper. In fact the exam branch only has to make sure that the paper code ad title should be correct. Any mistakes in the content are informed to us by the head examiner. Though we usually get a month to get the papers printed, this time we had just 15 days to get the job done. These are hopefully just teething troubles of the semester system,” the official said.