Paper No Enough

Ah what a blunder...

From Today Online - Oct 04, 2011
Shortage of question papers forces NUS to cancel economics exam
by Wendy Wong

SINGAPORE - Some 700 first-year undergraduates at the National University of Singapore (NUS), who were supposed to sit for a paper on managerial economics last Saturday, were told on the spot that the exam was cancelled - because not enough question papers were printed.

In response to MediaCorp's queries, an NUS spokesperson attributed the gaffe to "human error".

The university is looking into the matter "to strengthen the processes to prevent this from happening again", the spokesperson added.

According to the spokesperson, the mid-year test for the module "BSP 1005 Managerial Economics" was scheduled to be held at 2pm last Saturday.

The spokesperson said 750 copies were supposed to be printed for a class of 725.

The lecturer-in-charge of the exam, who works in the banking industry, had another class in the morning and he discovered at "about 2pm" that there was a shortage of 200 scripts, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said: "The lecturer-in-charge discussed with fellow colleagues on duty that day on the various available options. There was insufficient time to make additional copies as another test had been scheduled in the same hall immediately after the stated test.

"After considering all options, the lecturer-in-charge made the difficult decision of cancelling the test. The lecturer-in-charge then made the announcement to the students, took responsibility and apologised for the human error made, and followed up with an explanation email to all affected students."

The mid-year test would have made up 30 per cent of the students' overall grades. The weightage will now be shifted to other assignments.

In an email sent to the affected undergraduates last Saturday - a copy of which was obtained by MediaCorp - the course coordinator said: "On behalf of the entire team, I am really sorry for today's fiasco. We fell short in the number of printed papers we had and we could not find a way to make this work."

Pointing out the difficulty of rearranging another sitting for the exam, he added that there will not be a mid-year exam.

Adding that the situation was "completely unintended", the coordinator said the question paper will also be made available to the students for them to try the questions for practice and for tutorial discussions.

An affected undergraduate, who wished to be known only as Mr Tan, said he felt "very frustrated and annoyed".

He added: "I studied so hard for it and it got cancelled at the last minute."

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Who would expect such an important event to be cancelled just because there is insufficient scripts...

Most of the students interviewed by the media expressed frustration because their efforts in studying was wasted. If this were to happen to a primary school, secondary school or JC, I suppose almost everyone will be cheering in joy.

It reminds me of my early school days when the class often hoped that tests/quizzes will be postponed or cancelled, due to teachers taking MC or various possible screw-ups. Sadly most of the time such case didn't happen.

It seems like there is no other way out of this paper-shortage problem. Firstly, the test cannot be delayed since the venue will be used by another scheduled test immediately following that. Secondly, if the test is delayed, this may affect the schedule of some students who have other commitments right after that. You know, university students are busy people, like working adults. Thirdly, the test cannot be rescheduled due to the same reason above.

As you can see, the rigidity of schedules prevents the implementation of possible countermeasures. When some event is fixed in a certain timeslot, it must happen during this slot, otherwise off you go. This is especially true if the group involved is huge, and everyone must do the same thing together at the same time.

People may say: "There are so many copiers in NUS, 200 scripts can be easily produced in a short time." or "Why not just change to another venue? NUS is so huge." The facilities may be sufficient to cope, but it will be a logistic nightmare. Imagine trying move 700+ students, or even conveying message to all of them.

There was also dissatisfaction regarding the 30% weightage being absorbed to other assessment modes. This is so typical of a university student's mentality of "It is better to spread out weightage among more assessments, just in case I do badly for one."

Rather than disrupting everyone's schedules and receive hordes of complaints from other indirectly affected people, cancelling the test seems like the best damage control. Who cares if you had wasted time studying? At least it is just a minor psychological impact which affects only the 700+ students involved. (You have to study for the final exam eventually right?)