Amidst the coronavirus scare, clubbed with uncertainties, the Maharashtra Higher Education Minister Uday Samant declared that all universities in the state will conduct exams for the final year students only. ”Only final year students will sit for exams between July 1 and 30, unless coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown is extended further,” Minister for Higher and Technical Education Uday Samant said.
He further added, “We may have to cut short the exam time from 3 hours to 2 hours, or we might also decide to take a 50 mark theory exam instead of 80 or 100 marks, but such decisions will be left to the university. We also suggest each of the universities decide on the summer vacation dates and inform students accordingly.”
The minister also added that while conducting the exams, social distancing would be very strictly followed. There will be very few students in every class which would enable the teachers and the students to maintain their distance and safety.
On Thursday, Uday Samant had tweeted regarding the final decision on the status of the university examinations. It was also told that a committee of vice-chancellors presented their reports to the government, which was further discussed with the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray. It was further clarified that the exams which are being conducted are similar to the guidelines released by The University Grants Commission last month.
All other years of all courses, with no exceptions will be granted a promotion to the next year on the basis of a 50-50% gradation formula, according to which, 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. “Students who have Allowed-To-Keep-Term (ATKT) remarks for any subject from the previous semester will be promoted for the time being, but will have 120 days once the new academic year starts to appear for an exam and clear the subject,” added Samant.
It was also informed that these decisions have been made after an expert committee was formed a month ago, which included vice-chancellors of state universities, directors of state Common Entrance Test call, CET cell, and Directorate of Technical Education, DTE. These members were asked to come up with a concrete plan to give way to a new academic plan, underlying the UGC guidelines, that would be effective in the current situation and would most importantly prevent any academic loss to the students.
The minister went on to inform that the decision on UG CET and PG exams would be released after the 12th results. The candidates would be informed in another 8 days regarding the same.
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