Pass percentage increases by 4.38 points in Himachal Pradesh University colleges after another evaluation

SHIMLA: The pass percentage of BA, BSc and BCom first-year students of colleges affiliated with Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) has increased by 4.38 percentage points after another evaluation, following an agitation by students over poor results.

The low pass percentage of 31 points in BSc, 57 in BA and 58 in BCom first year led to an agitation by the students who held the "faulty" online evaluation system responsible for this. A five-member fact-finding committee was constituted by the pro vice-chancellor in November to look into the matter and find the gaps. A variation of 4.38 percentage points has been found in the pass results of the first and third evaluations which is a minor deviation.

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It implies that the result has improved marginally as over 4.38 per cent of students have passed in the third-party evaluation in addition to the previous result, Dean of Studies Kulbhushan Chandel, said. Chandel is also the chairman of the fact-finding committee. The report pointed out that students fared badly in environment science and language papers and five grace marks would be given to the students in environmental science as there was no subject teacher in the majority of the colleges, he told PTI.

Following protests by students, about 300 papers were re-checked randomly to analyse the functioning of the Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – online system and it was found that all the papers were properly scanned and marked, Chandel said. The committee then decided to check about 3,300 random papers from colleges where the pass percentage was less than 10 and later sent these papers for third-party evaluation.

Claiming that the results of 80 per cent of students were low in some colleges the SFI and ABVP office-bearers alleged that a snag in the online system has resulted in a low pass percentage. Over 42,000 students appeared in the examination in these courses in May-June this year and the results were declared in November.