Colleges to hold counselling sessions for dejected pupils

Updated on: Thursday, May 05, 2011

Worried that the high failure rate will affect the morale of their students, engineering colleges are planning to hold counselling sessions. The aim, they said, is to help first year students cope with their disappointment and motivate them to perform better in the second semester exams, which will be held at the end of May.

This decision was taken last week when principals of 25 colleges met at the Xavier’s Institute of Engineering, Mahim, to discuss the poor performance. Only 19% of 17,000-odd first year engineering students were able to clear their first semester exams. Though almost all the students have opted for their papers to be re-evaluated, they will still have to give supplementary tests. “Students will have to prepare for supplementary tests along with regular exams. We have to ensure that they perform well,” said a college principal.

This year, first semester results were announced only in mid-April even though students had given the exam in December 2010. Officials attributed the three-month delay to the introduction of the barcoding system and low participation among faculty members. “The barcoding system is complicated and time consuming. The varsity had introduced the computerised system to reduce the number of days that was wasted by manually feeding the scores. But the system delayed the results even further,” said a professor. Principals are planning to meet varsity officials to discuss possible methods to enhance the process.

“Nodal centres have been set up across the city, so examiners need not travel to the university for paper correction. We are hoping to complete the evaluation sooner in the second half of this academic year,” said a principal of an engineering college in Bandra.

- Pass percentage of first-year students:

2010-11: 19 per cent

2009-08: 29 per cent

2008-07: 39 per cent

- Engineering colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai: 55. These include colleges in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Ratnagiri, Thane and Raigad

- Total number of first year engineering students enrolled: Approximately 17,000 (fresh admissions)

- Numbers of papers first year students have to clear: 11 papers

Colleges to hold counselling sessions for dejected pupils

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