Maharashtra’s decision on final-year varsity exams to be announced by Monday

A day after the Supreme Court (SC) clarified that final-year students cannot be awarded their degrees without end-of-term exams, state minister for higher and technical

A day after the Supreme Court (SC) clarified that final-year students cannot be awarded their degrees without end-of-term exams, state minister for higher and technical education Uday Samant called for a meeting with vice-chancellors (VCs) of all 13 state universities on Saturday. A special committee was formed to decide the fate of exams and a decision will be announced on Monday (August 31), said Samant, adding that holding exams before September 30 was not possible.

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On Friday, the apex court upheld a decision by the University Grants Commission (UGC) that called for completion of the evaluation process across the country by September. SC clarified that colleges and universities cannot award degrees to students without conducting final-year or final-term examinations. Maharashtra was one of the states that had decided to cancel final-year exams and promote the students on the basis of aggregate marks from semester exams.

The court also mentioned that states were empowered to take decisions under the Disaster Management (DM) Act, 2005, to postpone final-year or final-semester exams beyond the September-end deadline. It allowed states to approach UGC for new dates that have to be communicated to them “at the earliest”.

Samant said after the meeting that the committee headed by Mumbai University’s vice-chancellor Dr Suhas Pednekar will submit its report by Monday noon after due deliberations with other vice chancellors and principals of colleges. Samant said, “Respecting the SC order, we will conduct examinations, but at the same time we will ensure that the health issues of the students, teaching and non-teaching staff members are not compromised. Taking all aspects into account and the options given to conduct the exams by UGC, the committee will submit its report by Monday afternoon. We will announce the rough timeline, how they can be conducted, besides the options for the students with ATKT and those going to other countries,” he said.

The minister said that examinations will be held in the simplest way and without summoning students to the exam halls. “UGC has given us various options, including open book, assignment based, online and offline to conduct the exams. The committee will deliberate on these options and come out with the simpler and student-friendly format. We are also checking the option of online exams and are in touch with other state government over the options opted by them. The students will be given adequate time for the preparations. The VCs have told us that they will need 45-50 days for preparations of exams and as such, conducting the exams before September 30, is out of question,” he said.

The minister said that conducting the exams at exam centres was not possible in the wake of the widespread Covid-19 infection. He said that most of the colleges, hostels are being used as quarantine centres.