Assam University launches online admission, examination system; Education Minister declares it open

Assam University, Silchar has announced that it would conduct the admission procedure of its affiliated colleges as well as the University in online mode. For this purpose, a private company has been contracted and all the arrangements have been made. The University has also taken initiative to conduct its examinations in a virtual model. The same procedure will be followed in the colleges under Assam University. They will also be able to take admission and examination of students through the same online procedure. The administration of Assam University held a virtual meeting on Wednesday. Apart from the university officials and professors, state ministers including the state education minister were also present at the meeting.

The Covid pandemic has been detrimental to the education system since last year. In the last one and a half years, physical teaching could not be conducted due to the pandemic. Even during examinations, many institutions had to go through immense difficulties and issues while examining in accordance with the Covid protocols. In order to eliminate these, the university authorities have decided to make the admission system through the net. In a virtual meeting today, Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said that the state government is planning to make the teaching-learning process from primary schools to colleges and universities level digital. Already several steps are being taken for this. In addition, the new National Education Policy (NEP) will also come into effect regarding this.

It has been often observed in colleges that a student applies in more than one department for their degree disciplines. Due to this, that particular student ends up occupying multiple slots in different colleges or departments where that student would end up opting for one of them only. And while that student opts for one discipline or college, the other slots end up unoccupied. In this new online module, this issue would be eradicated, as the contracted private company has assured that they would be monitoring the entire examination procedure.

Forest and Environment Minister Parimal Shuklabaidya said the new system introduced by the university has alleviated the worries of students and parents. Cachar’s Guardian Minister Ashok Singhal said the new system is an empowering step for all. There are a total of 63 colleges under Assam University. Assam University Registrar Pradosh Kiran Nath said that out of these, students of those 34 colleges will be admitted under the new system. The rest of the colleges will follow the procedure pretty soon.

Dilip Chandra Nath, Vice-chancellor of the Assam University, said that although the entire admission process is online, it is necessary to introduce some more trivialities for taking exams through the online module. But everything is not possible due to lack of funding. However, the Vice-Chancellor claimed that the university has improved tremendously during the tenure of the present BJP government. He even praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative for this development of infrastructure.

Last year there was a huge controversy surrounding the examinations of the colleges under the Assam University. But it is needless to say that if this new online module doesn’t get active soon, then again we might witness issues regarding the online mode of examination.