CHENNAI: To ensure smooth conduct of examinations during election time and to encourage students to vote, the University of Madras has decided not to hold any examination during April 15-20, varsity officials said.
Voting for Lok Sabha elections will be held in the State on April 18. Examinations for undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the university and its affiliated colleges will start from April 1. However, from April 15 to April 20, no examination will be conducted.
Controller of examinations, K Pandian said keeping in mind the election schedule, the examination time-table has been chalked out to ensure that students face no problem and the examination is not affected in any way.
Vice-Chancellor P Duraisamy said, “Some of the colleges affiliated to the university will be converted as polling booths during the election. In order to avoid any last moment glitches in arrangement and to ensure smooth conduct of examinations, we have intentionally not scheduled any examination for undergraduate or post-graduate courses during the election week. Adding to it, the week long holiday will encourage students to go to their native places and exercise their voting rights,” he said.
Notably, April 17 (Mahaveer Jayanti) and April 19 (Good Friday) are public holidays. The University on Tuesday issued a circular informing all its affiliated colleges about the examination schedule and had also uploaded the time table on its website.
The Madras University has 87 teaching and research departments, spread over six campuses and 135 affiliated colleges with a strength of about three lakh students. Examinations for different courses will start from April 1 and it will conclude in the second week of May. The week long gap during examination has also made students happy.