Nothing But Nill: In first offline exams, 1700 students score zero in THIS Chhattisgarh varsity

In what could be the best example to understand the impact of education going online in the wake of COVID pandemic, as many as 1700 undergraduate and major students of Raipur’s Pt. Ravi Shankar University scored zero in the first offline exams held in years. As per reports, the semester exams were held in as many as 150 colleges affiliated with the University. In which, 150,000 students appeared, for the first time in three years. As the results begin to emerge, both the University administration and the colleges find themselves astonished by what they behold. Remarkably, this time around, a staggering 1700 candidates have secured a score of zero in at least one subject. The reason behind this lies in the peculiar responses some students provided on their answer sheets, prompting the examiners to allocate zero marks. Bizarre Answers For example, a graduate student erroneously claimed that Mahatma Gandhi partook in the 1857 mutiny, despite being born in 1869. Another wrote in his Auditing paper that he does not wish to write the exam because he recently broke up with his girlfriend. Then he wrote the entire story of his break-up. In another instance, when asked for the scientific name of tea in the Botany paper, a student wrote that there are three types of tea – one with milk, another being black tea, and the third being green tea. A B.Com student went on to threaten the professor saying, “It will be beneficial for you if I pass this exam, otherwise you will face consequences”. A first-year BA Political Science student composed an entire song about the Constitution’s features. Professors of Ravi University expressed their surprise at the unusually high number of students receiving zero marks. They attribute this phenomenon to the fact that during the pandemic-induced lockdown, students were able to complete their answer sheets at leisure, resulting in high scores. This year, however, the situation changed as they were called upon to write their annual assessment papers in front of the invigilators. The maximum number of students who failed were enrolled in undergraduate courses such as BA, BCom, BSc, and BCA. Course-wise analysis of results revealed that students enrolled in Bachelor of Arts received maximum ‘zeroes’ – 379 followed by 312 in MA political Science, 285 in BCA, 202 in MA (English), 195 in MA (Mathematics), 126 in Bachelor of Applied Sciences, 86 in B.Com, 85 in MA (Sanskrit) and the list goes on. The postgraduate level also witnessed a considerable rate of failure. This stands in stark contrast to the previous year’s online examination results, where 95 percent of both undergraduate and postgraduate students passed, with many achieving first division distinctions. In response to these results, one professor was quoted in a local report stating that the students’ proficiency in written expression has conspicuously declined. “This decline extends beyond mere writing, with instances of students either misconstruing questions or providing incomplete responses. Some even resorted to composing fictional narratives or leaving answer sheets blank,” he said, adding that most of the professors like him were left with no option but to give them a zero. Dr. Shailendra Patel, the Registrar of the University responded by saying the annual results this year has been very bad as hundreds of students have scored zero. He added that some students are complaining that they were given zero despite writing the paper well. A random re-checking of copies are being ensured to check if there were any discrepancies in the evaluation.