E-Paper
It’s curtains down for convocation ceremonies in state universities from next year
The state higher and technical education department has decided to put an end to these ceremonies as huge funds are being spent on them
From the next academic year, state universities will not hold convocation ceremonies for conferring degrees, both graduate and post-graduate, on students. The state higher and technical education department has decided to put an end to these ceremonies as huge funds are being spent on them. However, students are unhappy as they will no longer be able to celebrate their big day.
State universities have hitherto upheld the time-honoured tradition of conducting convocation ceremonies twice every year wherein degrees are awarded to the passing students and gold medals are bestowed on the top-scorers by prominent educationists invited to grace the occasion as chief guest. On the one hand, huge monies are spent on these convocation ceremonies while on the other, students who have passed out earlier and want their degree certificate/s later have to go through a lengthy application process, said state higher and technical education department officials. In bringing the curtain down on convocation ceremonies, the state government intends to cut short this process by uploading degree certificates of all students on the Digi Locker platform where they can easily complete their online process and download the respective degree certificates.
State higher and technical education minister Chandrakant Patil said, “We have taken a decision to stop holding convocation ceremonies from the next academic year as a large amount of funds are spent on them. So, there won’t be convocation ceremonies held by any of the state universities from the next academic year. Instead, we have made the process simpler for students. Anyone who has graduated from a state university can download his/her degree certificate directly from the Digi Locker website or mobile application (app) by going through certain online application processes. Once all the details are filled in by the student, his/her certificate can be downloaded easily.”
Last year, the state government had decided to have one single day for state universities across Maharashtra to hold their convocation ceremonies so that students would get ‘uniform’ certificates and there would be one big day of celebrations across the state. However, the decision was not feasible for many universities, given the schedules of their exams and declaration of results.
Meanwhile, the decision has not gone down well with students, especially those from state universities such as the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) where graduation day is a joyous occasion to wear black gowns and graduation caps and click photographs with the historic SPPU main building as backdrop. Mandar Kenjale, a commerce student who is completing his degree course next year, said, “It is not right that convocation ceremonies are going to be stopped. Every student wants to celebrate his graduation day and if it is not going to be celebrated, it is a big disappointment for us.”
