Govt, pvt colleges to hold exams for final-year students from July 1-30

The state government has directed government and private universities and colleges in the state to conduct terminal exams for final-year undergraduate (UG ) and

The state government has directed government and private universities and colleges in the state to conduct terminal exams for final-year undergraduate (UG ) and postgraduate (PG) courses between July 1 and July 31, in the conventional format, while abiding by norms of social distancing and sanitisation.

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In directions issued to the higher education and technical education department, the government said that the average of all previous examinations may be taken into account for final-year outstation students, who could also opt to write the exams or improvement papers, later on, in the pen-and-paper format.

College heads said that they are awaiting more details on the improvement exams and guidelines for conducting the same.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) in April had issued guidelines for examinations and the academic calendar, allowing state and colleges to modify it as per their needs.

As per the state directives, students up to the intermediate stage of both UG and PG courses will be promoted to the next semester, taking into account the weightage of marks from the previous examinations and weightage of the internal assessment assignment scores, in equal measures. Universities may also administer tests, if required.

In colleges where practical exams are yet to be conducted, the average of all previous examinations or 80% average of theory examination marks of previous examinations — whichever is higher— will be taken into account. Students with arrears in previous examinations can be exempted from the exams and promoted to the next semester, with the arrears to be cleared later.

With the government issuing directions for exams to be held in the conventional format, colleges whose campuses have been converted to quarantine facilities need to work on other arrangements. Of the three colleges in the city, two of them, Government College in Sector 9 and Girls College in Sector 14, are currently being used as a quarantine facility and a relief centre, respectively.

Satyamanyu Yadav, principal, Government College in Sector 9, which is being used as a quarantine facility, said that he had written to the district administration and the controller of examination, MDU, apprising them about the unavailability of the college. “I have written to authorities informing them that either an alternative space is given to the college for holding the examinations or the college is relieved by the administration. We would need the college back at least 10 days before the examination so that it can be sanitised and prepared,” said Yadav.

The principal of the Dronacharya Government College, Pooja Khullar, said that the college has called for a meeting with council members on Monday to discuss the directives and plan for the examination. “For long, we had been waiting for these guidelines. We need to focus on physical distancing and plan for the examinations,” said Khullar. She said that the college needed to plan ways of conducting the exams for students who were not in the city.