Fate of over 70k final year students hangs in balance due to confusion over exams

Nagpur: Over 70,000 final year students of Nagpur University are eagerly hoping for an early end to the stalemate over their examinations. NU had sent faculty wise data of all these students to the State Higher and Technical Education Department on Monday after it was sought by the government.
It was compiled by NU’s Exam Section officials after the receiving directives from the government which is seeking information about number of final year students across all traditional universities in state. Statewide, there are approximately eight to nine lakh students in final year, who’re worried over the fate of exams.
Though education minister Uday Samant and principal secretary Saurabh Vijay refused to take up the calls from TOI, sources in their ministry informed that the government was collecting data on number of students to explore whether exams could be conducted while maintaining Covid distancing.
According to them, the government was well aware that their decision to cancel exams or even conducting it during the pandemic would be challenged in the judiciary. “So the authorities aren’t taking any chances. The government has already sought a legal opinion on chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s declaration on cancellation of exams and awarding average marks to all students based on their previous performance,” they said.
NU’s Board of Examination and Evaluation (BOEE) director Prafulla Sable told TOI that out of 70,556 students; about 45,000 were of general courses like BA, BCom and BSc while 18,000 were of professional courses like engineering, pharmacy and law.
“This figures could increase as we’ve restarted accepting examination forms from the students. It was stopped due to lockdown. We would be accepting the forms till June 25 and students’ numbers would increase. We expect to add about 5,000 students in these days, which would take their tally to 75,000,” he said.
On possibility of conducting exams while maintaining Covid distancing norms in case the government gives green signal, the director said NU planned to conduct it in three phases since the paper timing was reduced to two hours from three. “We would start from morning 9.30am and complete by 5.30pm. There will be one hour gap for sanitization and fumigation of the classrooms, before allowing new batch to appear for the papers. Currently, we’ve 138 centres, which would need to be increased for accommodating all these 75,000 students,” Sable said.
The BOEE director admitted that many students and parents were continuously approaching the Exam Section officials over fate of exams.