Hell of a day for students, parents in Bangalore

Till Sunday 9.30am, all believed that the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) would take place as scheduled. But when candidates assembled in the exam hall, they were told to leave the place and come back at 11.30am.

The three-hour entrance exam was postponed to noon due to what officials described as administrative reasons. What about the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) examination that was supposed to start at 2.30pm, some students, who had chosen to take both exams, wondered. They had to make a quick choice between the two. Most of them decided to drop AFMC.

When the students reassembled at 11.30am, those who had the AFMC hall ticket were advised to leave the place and take that exam instead of AIEEE. They were given a choice to write AIEEE on May 8 at the same centre. For that, the same admit card would be valid. Then came another announcement: The AFMC was postponed to 4.30 pm. Ufff. Now, what would happen to the COMED-K entrance test that has been fixed on May 8?

For students, it was a day of utter chaos and confusion. They had to make difficult decisions in no time and without help from their parents who were waiting outside exam centres wondering what was going on inside.

The students, who are already facing severe stress due to a flurry of entrance tests, became agitated because of these last-minute changes. “We do not know what to do when we are told to make a choice within a few minutes. It is so stressful and the whole day is going to be bad, I believe,” said Swati, who came along with Harshita, to take up the online version of AIEEE at RV College of Engineering in Bangalore. About 130 students had come there for the exam.

“I am taking exams for a month now. I got really hyper when they postponed it. I want to get over it. I really hope it is not postponed to another day,” Janani Hari said just before entering the exam hall at 11.30am. Absence of eateries close by made them angrier. Parents and students were left high and dry without food.
While some students considered the delay as an advantage and used the extra time to revise, a majority were agitated over the situation. “We were served tea and snacks, but will that do?” asked a student. Students ate whatever came their way.

Parents were clueless as they were not allowed to enter the exam centres. Some had to shuttle between the AIEEE and AFMC exam centres, which, in some cases, were far away. Take the case of Mohammed Abubakker Siddique. His father and mother dropped him off at IISc, his AIEEE exam centre, and went to attend a function. “But we later came to know that there was some confusion there and that the students were not being allowed inside the exam centre. We tried everything possible to contact the CBSE offices and find what was happening. We browsed the net for an hour and found a number, but nobody picked up our calls. My husband then rushed to the exam centre,” said Dr Ruksana Jabeen, Siddique’s mother.

“We were told the exam was postponed to afternoon. We didn’t know what’s going to happen about the AFMC exam. So my husband had to rush to that exam centre in the Air Force School. There he was told that the AFMC exam was also postponed. Then we decided to drop AIEEE as we were told that we can take that up on May 8 too. My husband has now gone to IISc again to pick him up and take him to the AFMC exam centre,” she said exasperatedly.

Confusion reigned exam centres. What frustrated parents more was the lack of communication. Officials were out of reach and the exam staff refused to divulge any details. “What the hell is happening? It’s a national shame,” rued an irate parent. However, the only reason cited was administrative problems. Students anxiously waited in the intervening time, unsure of what would happen next.

Many students had come from other towns as well. “I travelled through the night to attend the exam and this painful wait is just causing more tension,” said Sachin Sajjan from Koppal.
 “We started at 3am and thought we would reach home this evening. Now with the postponement, we don’t think we’ll make it before midnight,” parents of a student from Mysore said.
Some like Sriram S of CMR National Public School decided to take up AIEEE and forego AFMC.

Meanwhile, there were many students who skipped the AIEEE and chose to do it the next week. Aditya T, whose exam centre was the Army Public School, was one such candidate.

Parents lashed out at the way things were mismanaged. All announcements were being sent through students, with none of the authorities or officials coming out of the centres to explain the situation to them. “How can students make such a tough decision? Had an official come out to explain things to us, we would have helped our children in making the right choice,” said an agitated parent.

“There was no communication at all. Who is responsible for this chaos, we don’t know,” a despaired parent, S Ramesh, said.
“My daughter had problems in getting the hall ticket. When we tried to contact the helpline, there was no response. We somehow managed to get a duplicate one. Nothing is being managed here properly. If CBSE gets into such a mess, one can imagine how the other boards would be. We can’t rely on them,” said a parent.
Wouldn’t such chaos on the exam day affect the students mentally, asked another parent.

The campus chaos was a national phenomenon on Sunday. About 12 lakh students, who were to take up the competitive test at over 1,600 centres in more than 80 cities, faced similar hardships.
The Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE), the nodal agency for conducting AIEEE, introduced the online option this year which many wanted to give a try. Now, the students are told that those who take up the exam on May 8 would not be given that option.