Mumbai colleges to use 4-week break before April exams to revise syllabus

Outstation students say this will force them to cut short visits to their home towns

After delaying the last semester by almost a month owing to late examinations, the University of Mumbai (MU) has once again delayed the examination schedule for the current semester.

Mumbai...20th January 2011... Mumbai University - HT Photo by Hemant Padalkar (Hindustan Times)

Forced to complete the year’s syllabus in a shorter semester, colleges are now trying to find ways to utilise the gap between their last regular lecture and the first day of examinations — which is almost four weeks in some cases — this year.

Most colleges have decided to utilise this time to revise the syllabus and encourage students to participate in practicals.

“We have chalked out a schedule for revision classes and practical exercises, especially for subjects such as foundation course (FC) and environment studies (EVS),” said Sobhana Vasudevan, principal RA Podar College, Matunga.

She added attendance too has been made compulsory to ensure that students don’t think of this break as a vacation.

“Since second-year exams will begin in the last week of April and our last regular lecture ends in mid-March, we don’t want students to waste more than a month doing nothing. We want them to use this time to focus on studies,” Vasudevan added.

The varsity is yet to announce results of more than 130 courses from the previous semester because the assessment of nearly one lakh answer papers is pending. Hence, the exams for the ongoing semester were rescheduled by a couple of weeks, said an MU official. Most colleges will be running regular lectures till the third week of March. While exams for fresh candidates will begin in April, allowed-to-keep-term (ATKT) exams will start from March 20.

While most colleges want to utilise the four-week period for holding extra lectures, several outstation students are worried about dividing this time between studies and going back home.

“Usually, our exams are over by the first week of April. So we get enough time to spend with our families and return in the first week of June to start a new academic year. But this year our exams have been scheduled for the last week of April. Considering this, I won’t be able to spend more than two weeks with my family in Rajasthan,” said Akruti Vyas, second-year student, HR College, Churchgate.