Review UCG call on final semesters, Odisha urges Centre
BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Thursday requested the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) to reconsider the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) directive and not make the undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) final year/semester examinations mandatory.
In a letter to MHRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, state higher education minister Arun Kumar Sahoo urged him him to allow the state government to adhere to its decision of cancelling the final semester/year examinations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The higher education department had on June 11 decided to cancel all theory and practical papers of the end semester across the UG and PG courses. This decision has been implemented by all universities and autonomous colleges coming under the jurisdiction of the department. The government had cited the rise in Covid cases while cancelling the examinations.
The UGC’s revised guidelines and MHRD’s office memorandum issued on July 6 stated that the final semester/year examinations of UG and PG courses would mandatory. These examinations must be conducted by November 30. “We request the MHRD to reconsider the revised decision for the sake of all students,” Sahoo said.
He said the recently revised guidelines of the UGC was contradicting the commission’s earlier guidelines, which was issued on April 29. “The UGC had advised that the state governments can take the decision on the examinations after reviewing the Covid-19 situation. Accordingly, the state government had conducted a meeting comprising vice-chancellors, and subsequently cancelled the final semester/year examinations of UG and PG courses keeping the safety of students in mind,” he added.
The government had directed the universities and autonomous colleges to chalk out an alternate evaluate plan and publish the results by the end of August. According to the process, the institutions will take the prescribed weightage of internal marks, along with the average of what have been obtained in all previous semesters/years in a respective subject.
The minister said it it was possible to hold online or classroom examinations for around two lakh students across the state.