State Higher Education Minister agreed to students' demands and announced that colleges will reopen for lectures on February 15. (File/Representational) A day after the State Higher Education Minister agreed to students’ demands and announced that colleges will reopen for lectures on February 15, students have made a fresh demand – that end semester examinations be conducted online in multiple choice questions format.
Citing different reasons like Covid-19, travel issues, problems in studying online and restrictions in attending offline classes when they resume, students said that “inequities” in education delivery have made them ill equipped to write pen and paper theory exams.
Over the past two days, hundreds of students have taken to social networking sites to raise their demands. On Wednesday, Minister for Higher and Technical Education Uday Samant announced that colleges and universities could resume classes by February 15 with 50 per cent attendnace on rotational basis.
Vaibhav Edke, one of the students leading the social media campaign, said, “So far, classes are being conducted online and students were mentally prepared to give online exams, as we did in the first semester. Since only 50 per cent students can attend classes, there will be inequities in education delivery. It’s not fair to ask us to write lengthy pen and paper exams, so we are demanding that online MCQ exams be conducted,” he said.
Mahesh Kakade, director of examinations and evaluation at Savitribai Phule Pune University, said no decision has been taken on the issue yet. “On Wednesday evening, the state higher education department issued a government resolution saying that universities should decide the mode of examinations themselves. We have a meeting of the board of examinations scheduled over the next couple of days and it will be decided there. As of now, there is no decision,” said Kakade.