UGC revisiting guidelines on final semester exams: HRD Minister

NEW DELHI: Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has asked University Grants Commission to revise its earlier guidelines on university exams for final year students on Wednesday.

Pokhriyal on his official twitter handle wrote “I have advised the @ugc_india to revisit the guidelines issued earlier for intermediate and Terminal Semester examinations and the academic calendar,”

He further clarified that the decision to revise the guidelines has been taken for the “health and safety students, teachers and staff,” attending the examination.

I have advised the @ugc_india to revisit the guidelines issued earlier for intermediate and Terminal Semester examinations and academic calendar. The foundation for revisited guidelines shall be health and safety students, teachers and staff.@PIB_India @MIB_India @DDNewslive

— Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) June 24, 2020

As per the UGC guidelines, universities have been directed to conduct the terminal exam in July. The commission has also asked institutions to evaluate students of intermediate semesters based on internal assessment of the previous semesters.

In non-red zones, the UGC guidelines suggested conducting of exams even for the intermediate semesters with proper planning. The plan to conduct exam and related policies were left to the universities.

Exam cancellation

Owing to the huge spurt of COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra's chief minister Uddhav Thackrey cancelled the exams for final-year and intermediate year students. All students will be awarded aggregate marks based on their performance in the previous semesters for that academic year.

On Tuesday, Haryana Government also decided not to conduct exams for students in higher education institutes and technical institutes in the state. However, universities have been given the option to conduct online exams if "fully prepared and equipped for the same".

Several Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs), IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Roorkee, and Kharagpur have cancelled the final year exam for students. For timely graduation, students in these institutes will be promoted based on their grade points achieved in previous semesters.

In the past month, students from Delhi University, IIT Bhubaneswar have vehemently opposed conducting of online examination proposed as per UGC guidelines. DU students also staged a protest near the Arts Faculty area on Tuesday. The students are demanding cancellation of online exams and evaluation on past performance.

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