Coimbatore: After the University of Madras and Anna University, an examination marks scandal has now rocked the Bharathiar University in Coimbatore. Non-teaching staff of the university has been caught attempting to feed higher marks — in computer records — for 96 students who were pursuing Bachelors in Business Management course through the university’s School of Distance Education. All the candidates had enrolled through a study centre in Kerala and had failed in their semester examinations.
Outgoing Vice Chancellor C Swaminathan said a syndicate sub-committee will probe into the incident. The fraud came to light when system analyst Mahesh, who feeds the marks into the computer, sensed something amiss and blew the whistle. “Normally, original records (ledger) with the signature of the examination duty official will be provided to the system analyst while feeding the marks in the computer. But, in this case he was given the marks of 96 BBM students in a separate paper,” said a source.
“When the system analyst checked the original records, he was shocked to find that the students had actually scored lesser marks. In one case, the system analyst was asked to enter 79 marks against a student’s name, while the latter had actually scored only 19 marks,” the source added.
An inquiry led authorities to a few daily wage staff, who passed the blame on to an Assistant Section Officer in the Examination Department. The ASO claimed that the daily wagers were responsible for the fraud following which their services were terminated. “The Controller of Examination informed me that some corrections were made in the OMR sheets,” the V-C noted.
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