E-Paper
Education minister visits SPPU campus; final year exams begin from Oct 12
Over two lakh students have opted to take online and 50,000 will appear offline for the exam conducted by Savitribai Phule Pune University.
Over two lakh students have opted to take online and 50,000 will appear offline for the final year exam conducted by Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) beginning October 12.
To review the exam preparation, state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant visited the university campus on Tuesday and met the officials. Samant said that there will be no more delay in the examination schedule, which was postponed in light of other exams and strike by non-teaching staff. Samant, who was tested Covid positive a few days back, made his first official visit after completing the quarantine period.
“All the arrangements are in place and we hope that the exams will be conducted smoothly. For offline students, 113 centres have been identified by SPPU in three districts and instructions have been given to follow Covid prevention measures. The police commissioner and district collector of all the three districts — Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar — have been instructed by our department to coordinate for these exams,” said Samant.
Several students have complained about internet connectivity and other issues for online exam. Gurudev Somani, director, Mastersoft Erp, which is working with various city-based colleges for online exams, said that students have reported about facing internet connectivity and devices/browsers competency issues.
“Using mobile phones with different application versions, different data plans, created certain compatibility issues. It is advisable for students to settle down 10 minutes prior to the exam, go through mock tests conducted by the college, watch training videos and follow instructions. Following these steps will help address 99 per cent issues,” said Somani.
For the final year examination, a total of 2.5 lakh students of SPPU and its affiliated colleges are going to appear.
The written exams will start from October 12, while the mock test and question paper sets for practice will start from October 8. These exams will be of 50 marks with multiple-choice questions (MCQ) for a duration of one hour. SPPU faculty are preparing question paper sets for around 3,300 different subjects.
Fees and reopening of colleges
Talking about the college fee issue, Samant said, “We had instructed colleges earlier that there should be no increase in fees this year due to Covid-19 pandemic and students should not be forced to pay fees immediately. Development and gymkhana charges which are included in annual fees should not be charged this year. Action will be taken against colleges found not following the instructions.” “We have got the guidelines from the Union home ministry about re-starting colleges, but our stand is still the same that we will not allow colleges to reopen until the Covid situation normalises,” he said.
Issues faced by students
“Students are facing a lot of problems due to Covid-19 pandemic. Colleges are demanding full fees and students, mainly those coming from rural background, are unable to pay fees now. We requested the minister to reduce fees by 50 per cent,” said Sandhya Sonawane, Pune division head of Nationalist Congress Party students’ union.
Kuldeep Ambekar, president of students helping hand organisation said, “There are various issues which students are facing today due to Covid situation, right from paying fees, hostel or accommodation to appearing for the final year exams. Our demand is that the state education department should cancel the backlog exams for first and second-year students or else take their exams through MCQ method. The syllabus should be reduced by 25 per cent looking at the current online system of taking lectures. As most of the students come from rural part, there is connectivity issue and they cannot attend lectures regularly. College fees should be reduced by 50 per cent for this academic year.”
