Mumbai university administration meets college heads to plan final year exams

In a relief to students, the University of Mumbai on Friday indicated that it will soon release the schedule for semester examinations for final year students. The

In a relief to students, the University of Mumbai on Friday indicated that it will soon release the schedule for semester examinations for final year students. The university administration held meetings with all heads of departments and principals of affiliated colleges to discuss the way forward for examination and the new academic session.

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Last week, the state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant had announced that all final year students will have to appear for their final semester exams between July 1 and 30. He had also announced that all other students will be promoted to the next semester. Following Samant’s announcement, some final year students had started an online petition asking the government to scrap exams. Meanwhile, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued recommendations and guidelines for promoting students to the next academic year.

In line with Samant’s directions and following the UGC directive, the university administration, headed by vice-chancellor Suhas Pednekar, consulted with 857 principals, deans and heads of departments over a series of meetings on the matter. The discussions pertained to the examinations to be conducted by colleges, evaluation of papers, ATKT (allowed to keep term), internal marking and grading pattern to be adopted under the circumstances.

While usually semester exams of the University of Mumbai are held in April and May, this year most exams had to be scrapped owing t the lockdown. After confusion over exam dates, Samant clarified last week that all students, except those in final year, will be promoted to the next year. He directed universities and colleges to adopt UGC recommendation and promote students based on a 50-50% gradation formula--50% will be based a student’s performance in internals and other projects in the current semester and 50% will be based on the student’s performance in the previous semester. Those with ATKT would be passed temporarily but would have to appear for an exam within 120 days of the start of the new semester.