Share question banks, paper patterns with students, MU tells colleges

Colleges have also been asked to help with temporary accommodation for students during exams, especially for the outstation ones

Mumbai After reiterating that exams for professional courses will be conducted offline despite opposition from students, the University of Mumbai late on Thursday released a circular asking colleges offering professional courses to conduct mock exams and share paper patterns with students at the earliest.

This circular comes after a delegation led by school education minister Varsha Gaikwad along with members of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) visited state minister for higher and technical education Uday Samant (HT PHOTO)

Colleges have also been asked to help with temporary accommodation for students during exams, especially for the outstation ones.

This circular comes after a delegation led by school education minister Varsha Gaikwad along with members of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) visited state minister for higher and technical education Uday Samant, demanding that question banks be shared before exams. They also demanded that students should write the papers at their own colleges.

“Since the university is not ready to change the exam mode, sharing question banks and paper patterns will help students prepare, especially since they will be appearing for offline/physical exams after two years,” said a spokesperson of NSUI.

Earlier this month, Samant had also asked colleges and state universities to give 15 extra minutes for every hour of written examinations, so that students get more time.

Colleges are unsure about how they will manage to implement this rule, especially because exams are scheduled to start in less than three weeks in some courses. “Teachers are already busy with exam work and preparing question banks now will be very time consuming,” said a senior professor. She added that instead of colleges, universities should be sharing question banks with final-year students, because the question papers will be set by the varsity.

In February this year, MU released a circular stating that summer 2022 exams will be held in online as well as offline modes. All UG exams for commerce, arts and science session 2 (regular) and backlog exams for the same batches will be conducted offline. However, backlog exams (ATKT) for semesters 1, 3 and 5, as well as semester 4 exams for regular and backlog students will be conducted in online mode this year.

In the first week of March, MU released another statement confirming that semester 6 exams for traditional (aided and unaided) courses will be conducted online this year, whereas those for professional courses will be held offline.