Teachers organisation demands postponement of first-year Mumbai university exams

The Bombay University and College Teachers’ Union (BUCTU) on Wednesday once again approached the vice-chancellor of the University of Mumbai (MU) seeking postponement of first-year degree college exams. In their letter, degree college teachers have which suggested that first-year exams be postponed to end of January 2021, and demanded that the university release an official circular at the earliest.

This letter comes less than two weeks after the organisation, in their previous letter, highlighted that most colleges have not managed to teach the mandatory 90 days before exams due to delay in admissions to first-year courses, thereby making it impossible to hold exams in December.

Through this letter, BUCTU members have expressed their shock at how the university has slowly started informing colleges about change in the exam schedule. “While some cluster colleges have been informed to start first year exams in the first and second week of January 2021, many colleges in Konkan have not received any intimation from the university. This casual manner of sharing crucial information is unacceptable,” said BUCTU.

As per MU’s November 18 circular, affiliated colleges are supposed to hold online exams for the current batches of undergraduate courses by December 2020 while postgraduate exams should be conducted in January 2020.

“Due to the Covid-19 situation, admissions to first-year courses were delayed by a couple of months this year, and regular classes for these batches started only in October. Many colleges have not yet managed to conduct practical classes as yet, so any form of examination in the month of December will be unfair to the students,” added the letter.