The University Grants Commission(UGC) has decided against recommending the cancellation of final semester exams after a meeting that was conducted on Monday. The UGC has advised all colleges and universities under it to assess the graduating batch of students through an examination just like they would under normal circumstance.
But the UGC has given them an option of conducting it either online, offline or in a blended mode.
The body also made public its decision to tweak the original academic calendar that it prescribes and advised educational institutions to ensure that all such examinations and assessments were completed by the end of September.
It has to be acknowledged that the UGC had first released an indicative academic calendar for institutions of higher education on April 29 in which it had prescribed that universities are advised to conduct the final year examination or the terminal end examination from July 2-15 and declare their results till the end of the month and clear everything.
It also said that for students who are unable to give their final semester of final year examinations, the universities will be required to hold a special exam after the month of September.
And for those who aren’t able to clear the exams or seek an improvement in their results, they too would be given a chance by the universities according to the new UGC guidelines. The revised guidelines haven’t been issued yet but are speculated to be out quite soon.
The regulator conducted a meeting on Monday in order to revisit its indicative alternative calendar on the behest of the Human Resource Development Ministry. It was on June 24 that the government had ordered the UGC to reconsider its guidelines on examination and academic calendar for universities that had been issued earlier keeping the coronavirus associated pandemic into consideration. Since the guidelines and recommendations of the committee had been based on the work done under Haryana Central University Head RC Kuhad, the higher education regulator referred back the HRD Ministry’s request to the panel for a second round of review. The decisions that were taken on Monday in the meeting were also based on the suggestions made by the panel headed by Haryana Central University Head RC Kuhad.
It is believed that the revised guidelines by the UGC will have an impact on the examination schedules throughout the country and especially in states such as Gujarat and Karnataka which had been eagerly looking forward to the higher education regulator’s decision on the matter.
It is yet not clear whether states like Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal will now be ready to revisit their decision to cancel all exams in institutions of higher education.
