Ranchi University to take call on outsourcing examination process tomorrow

The Ranchi University (RU) will consider outsourcing the entire process of examination of all its undergraduate, post graduate and other courses in its syndicate meeting scheduled on Wednesday.

Confirming the proposal, RU Registrar Dr MC Mehta said, “We will discuss the matter of outsourcing the responsibility of holding examinations to a private party starting from online issue of admit cards to the distribution of certificates in tomorrow’s meeting.”

The RU is planning to completely automate and take the entire process of examination online from filling up of examination forms, payment of examination fees, issue of admit cards, auto generation of question paper from a bank set up for the purpose, to scoring of answer sheets and finally issue of mark sheets and certificates.

“We also plan to have the answer sheets coded so that the examiner does not come to know the name of the student and there is complete transparency and fairness,” Mehta said, adding that the entire idea will first be discussed at the syndicate meeting.

The proposal to outsource the examination process to a private company is learnt to be under consideration to avoid human errors, delays in issuing admit and score cards, and irregularities like question papers getting leaked and influencing the examiners.

However, on the same counts, RU Controller of Examination Dr AK Jha said, “Instead of giving all control of a huge responsibility of holding examinations to a third party, there is a need to strengthen the varsity’s examination department and keep it in-house.

“There is already an online process in place for filling up the examination forms and issuance of the admit cards. As for the certificates, the physical certificate holds value and it is either collected from the respective colleges or it can be delivered by courier to students who could not attend the convocation.

“The idea should be to understand the needs of the examination department and provide the required equipment, software and manpower rather than handing it out to a third party. Anyway it is just a proposal and a decision will be made tomorrow.”