Article about TCE in The Hindu

This article is published about TCE in The Hindu on 31-05-2005


A nail-biting finish for engineering students

S. Vijay Kumar

Despite having got placements, these students had a
harrowing time

MADURAI: It was a nail-biting finish for these final
year students of the Thiagarajar College of
Engineering (TCE) in Madurai.

Despite having got placements in companies such as
Infosys, Wipro and TCS, these students with a
meritorious track record throughout had a harrowing
time days ahead of bidding adieu to their college.
Reason — they all "failed" in one subject by a huge
margin. While the marks scored in previous semesters
worked to a first class distinction score, the
"failure" in one subject left them dejected as they
would have to lose the job opportunity once for all.

The students, mostly in the Electronics and
Communication Engineering stream, got placements in
the campus interview held even before their final year
commenced. When they were packing to join the
hi-profile jobs after the final examinations, the news
of 47 of 118 students "failing" in the
`Telecommunication System' came as a jolt.

17-day trauma

After shock and agony for a couple of days, the
students put up a brave stand to demand instant
revaluation.

Taking their pitiable situation into consideration,
the college management agreed to issue a photocopy of
their answer scripts. A revaluation was done in a
couple of weeks and the results were announced.

Guess what happened? Yes, all the 100 plus students
passed with first class and above marks. Those who
scored 15 or 20 got 60 and above. "We are surprised
how the difference could be this much. The revaluation
marks usually vary between 5 and 10. But the average
difference in this case was 45 marks," says a student.

It was a miserable time for all the students and their
family members for 17 long days. Though the students
were confident that they had fared well in the
examinations, the college authorities gave them no
assurance of a positive result in the revaluation.
"Many of my classmates were almost in a state of
depression. We were told that teachers from other
colleges evaluated the papers. But how could there be
such a wide deviation in evaluation," asks another
student.

`Attitudinal aberration'

Ask the TCE Principal, V. Abhaikumar, how all this
happened, he says there is an attitudinal aberration
among the students once they got placed.

"The students got the job offer during the beginning
of the final year. There was a perceptible change in
their approach in the academic exercises and they
almost took things for granted." However, Mr.
Abhaikumar, who is also the Head of the Department of
ECE, said he was "surprised" at seeing the results.

Though an autonomous college, the TCE has an external
evaluation system where teachers from other colleges
are involved. "We are planning to revamp the
evaluation pattern. The placement programme also needs
to be postponed at least till the fag end of the final
year."

However, for the 125 students, including many girls,
it was a huge relief. They are now set to take off to
take up a challenging career from a college that has a
distinction of 100 per cent placement.

Taken from : http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/31/stories/2005053104520500.htm