SPPU keen to go online as apex court okays final-year exams

Varsity is convinced virtual mode can be deployed after choosing to use it for its entrance tests

With Supreme Court ruling in favour of universities holding their final-year examinations on Friday, the state government’s higher and technical education department has now initiated the process of figuring out the feasibility of conducting the exams, which will be taken by approximately eight lakh students. Savithribai Phule Pune Universtity (SPPU), however, has shown preference to holding the exams online.

On Friday, the state’s higher and technical education minister, Uday Samant announced that he will be visiting all the public varsities in the state and talking to their vice chancellors on the modes in which the final exams can be held. “Accepting the Supreme Court’s decision, we will take the process forward now and based on each university’s need and available resources, we expect the vice chancellors to give us a detailed plan on how they can conduct the examinations,” he said.

Speaking to Mirror, SPPU’s vice chancellor, Nitin Karmalkar, pointed out, “As we’ve already planned to hold our entrance examinations online, the same mode would be preferred to be used for the final examinations too. As we did for the entrance exams, a survey can be conducted to understand students’ access to online medium, given that online education is the way forward.”

He added that over 30,000 students had enrolled for the entrance exams to the university’s graduate and postgraduate courses. “Our survey found that 85 per cent of the students who had enrolled could access internet, with most of them from urban areas. It was, therefore, found that they could appear for online examinations, deploying multiple-choice questions and such mechanisms,” he explained.

He also informed that work on conducting the final examinations had already begun by the university in keeping with the guidelines set by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the matter was also discussed at length by the Board of Studies and the Board of Examination during their committee meetings.

It may be recalled that while UGC gave the goahead for holding final examinations using different modes such as open book, online, pen and paper and oral, Shiv Sena’s youth wing, Yuva Sena, had challenged the order in Supreme Court, seeking it be quashed in the light of the COVID-19 situation in the country. With the apex court holding up the UGC order, the exams can be conducted until September 30, as per the guidelines. However, should the situation not permit meeting this deadline, universities can seek a postponement from UGC.

Samant assured that students will be given ample time to prepare and the decision on the scheduling and medium of examination will be decided after his discussion with the vice chancellors. “We will also explore if differed rules can be applied to different varsities,” he added.

Clearly still trepidatious about attending the examinations while the pandemic is around, Kamalakar Shete, a final-year student from SPPU’s commerce department observed, “While the verdict has been given for the examinations, we do not know the situation under which we will have to sit for them. Either way, students will have to suffer the consequences.”