IGNOU to conduct exams as per schedule in Valley

SRINAGAR — The Srinagar regional centre of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has decided to hold all exams as per schedule for students in Kashmir valley, officials said.

The Open University’s regional office was severely affected by the floods at Rajbagh. “Like other offices, the floods also hit us hard but we acted quickly to help students and started our new office at Khanyar,” said Noor Ul Hassan, Regional Director of IGNOU.

“We are in touch with our students through phones and social media and everybody is being kept in the loop over the latest developments,” Hassan said as he negated the rumours about postponing exams and said that the functioning of the regional centre is fast returning to normalcy.

“There were apprehensions among students about the cancellation or postponement of examinations but we want to inform them that all the examinations would be held as per the date sheet,” said Hassan and added further, “The exams were scheduled for December, so till that time the flood after-effects would have subsided a lot and we have decided to stick to that schedule.”

According to Hassan, around 21000 students are currently enrolled at the regional centre. “Together from previous batches and this year’s session, we have a large number of students on our rolls and our priority is to save their academic session,” said Hassan.

“Even as per the number of examination forms submitted, we don’t see any substantial decline. We were expecting 14000 examination forms this year and to date, we have received 11000 forms and up to the last date of October 20, our target would be achieved,” he stated.

Regarding the office at Rajbagh, Hassan said that it was severely damaged in the floods. “Right before the floods, we had received a large number of books and study materials for almost all the streams,” said Hassan. “We were in the distribution process when the floods stuck and everything on the ground floor got damaged.”

According to the preliminary assessment done by their office, the regional centre has lost around 50 tonnes of books and study materials in these floods. “Besides several trucks of books, we lost our office infrastructure, record books, computers and other things,” said Hassan.

“The Rajbagh location has only recently been dewatered and it is still in the cleaning process. Our people are currently taking out the muck from the office and it will take some time before we will be able to shift back to that place,” he added.