Mumbai: On Tuesday, Higher Education Minister of Maharashtra, Uday Samant has requested the Ministry of human resource development to implement uniform rules and guidelines for awarding final year degrees to the students since Maharashtra government will not be able to conduct examinations for final year students in view of the current COVID-19 situation.
Soon after the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued new guidelines and instructed the higher education institutions to conduct final-year examinations for the students during September-end in either offline mode using pen or pencil, online mode or in a mixed-mode, the Maharashtra government opposed the decision and stated that it’s not possible to conduct exams amid this deadly pandemic. They said, “If conducted, would endanger the wellbeing of students, parents, teachers, supporting staff and other machinery involved in the process.”
The UGC announced its latest guidelines after the ministry of home affairs agreed to their plan on Monday of holding term end or final year exams.
Samant had sent a letter to Union Minister for HRD, Ramesh Pokhriyal and also a copy of it to Union Home Minister, Amit Shah where he said, “Maharashtra is the worst affected state with more than two lakh cases confirmed so far. In such unforeseen, uncertain and critical challenging situations, conduction of final year exams of approximately more than ten lakh students seems a highly infeasible task...” He also stated that the virus had infected a large number of students in various states and countries where the exams have been conducted and they cannot afford to risk the health of so many students in a state which is already in a bad condition due to Covid-19 with a maximum number of active cases and fatality rates.
Samant said that the state government has decided to award degrees to the final year students on the basis of their performance in the previous semesters or based on the internal evaluation.
