The final year students, ultimately receive an answer about when their exams are going to be held. Their exams have been scheduled for the first week of October and the results are to be declared by the end of the month.
The committee headed by Suhas Pednekar, the Vice-Chancellors of the Mumbai University, comprises of six-member which are VCs of Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Nanded, and SNDT universities along with two former Mumbai University Vice-Chancellors and directors of Higher and Technical Education, will be deciding the schedule and modalities of conducting these exams for nearly 8 lakh students in the state. It will be declared two days after the committee of the VCs finalises a plan. They are looking into various options for conducting these exams.
After the Supreme Court’s decision of conducting exams the states have been asked to follow the guidelines by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The state government constituted this six-member panel which submitted its report on Monday.
Maharashtra’s higher and technical education minister, Uday Samant has recently confirmed in a tweet that the Maharashtra University Final Year exams 2020 will not be conducted till September 30, 2020. “The universities are trying to ensure that the final year exams can be given to the students from home. The exams will not be held until September 30. The Vice-Chancellor opined that the government should request the UGC to extend the term till October 2020,” he added.
11 out of 13 state universities in Maharashtra including the Mumbai University, have requested to put down the extension of the 30th September deadline by the UGC and will strive to complete the examination process till 31st October. While, Sant Gadge Baba Amravati Univesity, Amravati and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), Nashik – sought to complete them by November 10.
Although while mandating the final year exams the top court had allowed the states to seek an extension of the deadline. This proposal for deadline extension will be sent to the UGC for its approval. Samant also said that Uddhav Thackeray, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra will hold a meeting with the state disaster management authority and discuss the new exam schedule.
However, as the number of COVID-19 cases in the state of Maharashtra is massive and everyone is dealing with it with huge difficulty, Samant said that no student will have to step out of their house even when the state will conduct exams.
“The committee is considering three options, namely online mode, open-book exam and assignments. We have asked the VCs to select one option we are firm on the position that students cannot be made to come to the centre to take the exam. The panel members are meeting tomorrow (Tuesday), and by Wednesday they should be ready with their exam schedule and the plan for conducting exams,” Uday Samant added.
The exams are expected to be conducted online and will be set on less number of marks to ease the burden of the students who have been latched for months over exams. The question paper might be based on multiple-choice questions. The weightage is also expected to be reduced of the 100 mark paper along with shrinking the duration to one hour, the experts say.
However, many student bodies in Maharashtra are suggesting ways to conduct these final year exams by writing to their state governments, respectively. Around 16 bodies of student organizations have collectively written to Uddhav Thackeray after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the UGC to conduct the final year exams.
