E-Paper
SPPU opts to conduct exam in offline mode
We have started our preparations to conduct the offline examination for the next semester. We will be conducting it under the traditional long answers’ pattern which was conducted before Covid-19, said Mahesh Kakade, SPPU examination and evaluation department head
The state higher education department on Thursday submitted its report to the state government after hearing the student group petitioners about the ongoing issue of conducting exams in a uniform manner across all state universities.
Already, Nagpur university and two other universities in the state have declared that they will conduct offline exams through the multiple choice question (MCQ) method while the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) examination department is gearing up to conduct the exam in the traditional pattern of pre-Covid times.
“We have started our preparations to conduct the offline examination for the next semester. We will be conducting it under the traditional long answers’ pattern which was conducted before Covid. In the last two years, the exams were conducted online through the MCQ method but it was due to the limitations of the pandemic but now as restrictions have been eased and students have come back to college campuses, we are ready to conduct exams like before. As all the universities are different and everyone has decided to conduct the examinations in offline mode from now, the decision regarding how to conduct the exams whether in the MCQ or traditional manner is up to that university,” said Mahesh Kakade, SPPU examination and evaluation department head.
On May 30, a Bombay high court (HC) bench of justices Milind Jadhav and Abhay Ahuja, while hearing a petition on ‘uniformity of conducting examinations across state universities and declaring results in a time-bound manner’ directed the higher education ministry to hold a meeting with the vice-chancellors of state universities and also hear the petitioners’ side and submit their report to the state government.
Accordingly the petitioners in this case, activists Kalpesh Yadav and Blausha Bhasal, held a meeting with the state higher education director Dhanraj Mane on June 1 and also submitted an additional letter along with the earlier petition to the department. Whereas after the meeting on June 2, Mane submitted the report on the petitioners’ say to the state government.
“Our only demand and reason behind filing this petition is to have a common type of and uniform way of examination to be conducted across all state universities. Already three state universities - Nagpur, Jalgaon and Gadchiroli have declared that they will be conducting the exams through the MCQ method and the reason they have given is for the benefit of those students who are preparing for competitive examinations, as results will be declared early. Now if other universities conduct the exams in any other pattern, this would be an injustice with students from different universities,” said Yadav.
“We had a meeting with the state higher education director Dhanraj Mane on June 1 and we kept the additional points apart from the petition filed, as it was instructed by the HC. In this meeting, we said that there is lot of difference in the methods of examination to be conducted by various state universities. And most importantly, if the syllabus taught for these exams is taken in the online mode, at least the syllabus for the exams should be reduced. The students’ demand is to get the results by July 15 and for that, the offline MCQ method along with the question bank should be taken.” Yadav added.
When contacted, Mane said, “As per the instructions given by the HC, a meeting was held with the petitioners to hear them out - their demands in addition to the petition. After the meeting, a report has been submitted to the state government yesterday from our side and we will follow all the instructions given by the HC.”
