Parents and students to approach the supreme court to demand scrapping of final year exams after the University Grant Commission (UGC’s) recently released guidelines for the exams to be conducted by September. 

Anubha Shrivastava, president of India wide parents association, said that they are going to approach the Supreme Court and demand relief for lakhs of final year students across the country. Students also have been protesting on social media demanding that the exams be scrapped and scores be alloted based on internal assessment and the previous semester’s results. They solicit the 50-50 criteria which have been set for the intermediate students. A final year student said that the demographic limitations of our education system are being ignored by the UGC. Many students do not own laptop and will not be allowed to travel by their family during the pandemic.

A student Ashish Kumar proposed that UGC should provide a provision for the students disappointed with the current results and that pen and paper exams should be conducted when the situation gets stable. Another student stated that UGC should remove the compulsion and leave the decision on the state.

However, UGC said that until now, over 640 universities have responded to UGC’s guidelines on holding exams. Of these, over 454 universities have conducted the exams or are planning to do so. Around 177 universities are yet to take a decision.

Earlier, professor Rajnish Jain, UGC secretary said that the safety of students is the primary concern. “Universities and colleges can opt for the blended mode to conduct final year exams. The UGC guidelines have been formulated as per the SOP proposed by the health ministry. Commencement of final year exams is very important for students and they should be conducted by all the states,” he had said.

Source: duupdates.in

Read: UGC to ask all states to adopt revised guidelines for final year exams